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THE AMERICAN COLLEGES 

AND UNIVERSITIES IN 

THE GREAT WAR 

1914-1919 



A HISTORY 



BY 

CHARLES FRANKLIN THWING, Litt.D., LL.D. 
President of Western Reserve University 



jBett) gotk 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1920 

AXl right* reserved 






COPYEIGHT, 1920, 

bt the macmillan company 



Set up and electrotyped. Published, September, 1920 



GOT 28 !220 
©CI,A601148 



TO 
FRANCIS WENDELL BUTLER-THWING, 

ANDOVER, HARVARD, AND 

NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD 

CAPTAIN. COLDSTREAM GUARDS 



PKEFATORY NOTE 

The lack of adequate interpretation of the part 
which the American colleges, both Northern and 
Southern, played in the Civil War has long seemed 
to me a public and an academic misfortune. The 
possibility of filling this lack lessens with each pass- 
ing year. The share which the American college 
and university had in the World's War was at least 
as significant and impressive as that which the Civil 
War represents. Early, therefore, in the great strug- 
gle, I began to collect materials for its academic his- 
tory. These materials include evidences furnished 
directly by hundreds of institutions, as well as the 
more typical sources of books, pamphlets, and news- 
papers., To each college officer, who has thus gra- 
ciously and generously aided me, I am grateful. 

This history, concerned with a small social and 
educational group, has yet largest relations. For it 
helps to prove that the higher education, in the per- 
son of its teachers and students of successive genera- 
tions, trains men for the service of the nation. While 
higher education may in certain respects be justly 
charged with narrowness, it yet, be it affirmed, uses 



Prefatory Note 

its narrowness for an increase of all human forces 
and for a worthy bettering of all that makes for the 
welfare of men. I trust that, from the reading of 
these pages, one may come, as I come from their 
writing, with a lordlier hope for the race and for 
the races. 

c. r. T. 

Western Reserve University, 
Cleveland, 
1st January, 1920. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Prefatory Note vii 

I Motives for Entering the Service ... 1 

II Before the Entrance of the United States 14 

III Financial Kelations of the Colleges ... 40 

IV The Students' Army Training Corps ... 55 
V The Enlisted 85 

VI College Officers in War Service .... 92 

VII The Spirit of the Student Soldier ... 99 

VIII The Sciences and the Scientists .... 115 

IX The Women's Colleges 140 

X The Religion op the Student Soldier . . 151 

XI Poetry as an Interpretation op the War . 167 

XII International Relations 180 

XIII The Fallen 210 

XIV The Commencements op the War Period . 231 

XV Some Enduring Effects of the War on the 

Colleges and the Universities .... 245 

XVI Academic Memorials 261 

Index 271 



THE AMERICAN COLLEGES 

AND UNIVERSITIES IN 

THE GREAT WAR 



MOTIVES FOE ENTERING THE SEEVICE 

The conditions belonging to the college man create 
the motives inspiring him to enter his country's 
service in time of war. 

Of these conditions perhaps the most obvious is the 
college man's age. He is, on entering as a freshman, 
about eighteen years old. This age and the following 
four years form the close of the period of his emo- 
tional, and the beginning of his mature intellectual, 
growth. The feelings are strong, easily stirred, 
readily moving toward the gTeat, the sublime, the 
commanding. With emotionalism is associated the 
faculty of imagination. This youth thinks in pic- 
tures. If the developing and enriched intellect fur- 
nishes material and content of these pictures, the 
feelings move the hand of imagination to paint them 
in brightly glowing colors. The sense of adventure 



2 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

fascinates. The possibilities which the adventure 
holds forth stir the soul. The glory of the adventure, 
even if it be touched with the probability of death, 
beckons. The highest ambition of this manly youth 
— human liberation — gets hold of every part of his 
being. I can — I will — I must — he cries. Of 
course, to a certain extent, such feelings and imagina- 
tions belong to every young man. Enrollment in the 
army or navy by the student is only a part of the 
heroism of youth. But such feelings do at least seem 
to rise to a higher level, to a whiter crest, and to as- 
sume more brilliant coloring, on the brow and in the 
bosom of the college man. 

Another condition belonging to the student is his 
sense of democracy. He is a member of a little group 
in which equals moving with equals represent the 
common lot. These men are a part of the great third 
estate. They are as pebbles flung together on the 
same beach by the hand of destiny to be rounded and 
polished by the same forces. The differences which 
divide men outside academic walls have a certain 
value; but the value is much smaller than ordinary 
humanity assigns. Wealth, social distinction, herit- 
age of a noble name, militate quite as much against 
as for the student's timely advantage. The group as 
seen in a fraternity house represents the par inter 
pares. The floor of the classroom is built on one 



Motives for Entering the Service 3 

level, and that floor has only a few square feet. The 
college chapel, the table in the reading room, the 
benches in the chemical, and the physical, laboratory 
represent a community and an equality of interest. 
The gridiron and diamond stand for brotherhood and 
cooperation. These forces, outwardly and materially 
visible, are only the sign of the inward forces which 
unite. College men think together, even if not 
alike. They are moved by similar ambitions and 
stirred by like motives and ideals, even if the con- 
summate achievement be not alike. A thousand or 
a hundred hearts beat as one. Therefore, a wave of 
patriotism touches segregated and separated indi- 
vidualities, and combines them into unities. One 
bugle call is heard by a thousand ears; one flag is 
seen by a thousand eyes. As Oliver Wendell Holmes 
said at a commencement of his Alma Mater, in the 
midst of the Civil War in 1863,—" The hero in his 
laurels sits next to the divine rustling in the dry gar- 
land of his Doctorate. The poet in his crown of bays, 
the critic, in his wreath of ivy, clasp each other's 
hands, members of the same happy family. This is 
the birthday feast for every one of us whose fore- 
head has been sprinkled from the font inscribed 
Christo et Ecclesiae. We have no badges but our 
diplomas, no distinctions but our years of gradua- 
tion. This is the Kepublic carried into the Univer- 



4 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

sity; all of us are bom equal into this great fra- 
ternity." ^ The response, the reaction, the patriotic 
stimulus, work on the feeling of each and of every 
other man, reenforcing, increasing, magnifying, de- 
veloping it. Excitement begets excitement. Thrill 
stirs thrill. Each man goes where others go, and 
the others go where each goes. The democracy of 
the group promotes the martial enrollment. 

This essential quality of democracy seems not to 
have suffered under the conditions of the modern 
college. The college of the early and middle dec- 
ades of the Nineteenth Century was a college of pe- 
culiarly united interests. Students of the same class 
studied the same subjects. Year by year, the prog- 
ress was regular and general. The two ancient lan- 
guages, mathematics, with certain excursions, more 
or less brief, into English, philosophy, the modem 
languages, science, and history, formed the founda- 
tion of the orderly academic structure. With a few 
minor exceptions, each student did what the other 
did. Of the modern college, however, diversity, sepa- 
rateness, individualism, is the distinctive mark. 
Students of the same class are divided by many and 
diverse interests. Members of different classes are 
usually joined together in the same subjects of 

1 Address before the Association of the Alumni of Harvard 
College, 16th July, 1863, 



Motives for Entering the Service 5 

study. The elective system stands for individuality 
of choice. Each man pursues his own will under the 
general supervision of college officers. Yet, despite 
these individualisms, the college spirit is still one, 
the college atmosphere one, and the general aim one. 
The democratic movement and condition of equality 
is still regnant. 

The democracy of war and the democracy of edu- 
cation are impressively alike. For war makes 
equals. War promotes equality between men of the 
same grade or kind. If it create differences and 
distinctions between different grades of service, it 
yet makes men of the same order equal. All pri- 
vates in the ranks are alike. Exterior distinctions 
are lost. The titled are as obscure as the obscure; 
the obscure as distinguished as the titled. The 
poor are as rich as the rich and the rich are as poor 
as the poor. A boy of distinguished ancestry and 
education, brought up in peculiarly exclusive sur- 
roundings, was serving at the front as a private. In 
a letter to his mother he told about two of his special 
chums. One of them was Erine O' Callahan and the 
other Billie Sweeny. He wrote to his mother — 
" You can't beat those boys on the face of the earth. 
I want you to call upon their mothers." Education 
is likewise democratic — a common obedience for 
all men, themselves personally equal or unequal, and 



6 Colleges and Universities in the Or eat War 

a common opportunity. It lias been said tliat in 
Germany there were no equals — only superiors or 
inferiors. In America one might, with equal truth, 
say, there are only equals. America holds open one 
educational gateway. It paves one road to learning, 
and that not royal. It points out one goal which it 
inspires each to reach. Autocracy in education is 
narrow and narrowing, inclined to accept social 
stratification. Democracy in education is broad, as 
broad as human nature. Autocracy in education is 
prone to being materialistic. Democracy is idealis- 
tic. Aristocracy in education is liable to forget hu- 
manity's hard, complex problems. Democracy in 
education is sympathizing and inspiring of every 
worthy endeavor. 

A further motive for enrollment, and also its 
origin, is the fundamental element of patriotism, 
both historical and personal. The college man loves 
his country for the reason which leads the mature 
civilian to love it, the reason found in his birth 
within its borders and in its beneficence to him and 
to his. But also the college man loves it because 
of a peculiar sense of possession. It is his country. 
He belongs to it, and it belongs to him. With this 
sense is often joined the sense of her peril and also 
the sense that she may have suffered or be in danger 
of suffering an insult. It is his place to retaliate or 



Motives for Entering the Service 7 

to defend. His patriotism is rather a love of her 
than a movement of the will, although the heart's 
love proves itself in overt acts. The patriotism does 
show itself in the college songs and the commemora- 
tion odes of all countries. 

Is there any poem of the war in which this spirit 
is more fully voiced than in Winifred M. Letts' 
" The Spires of Oxford " ? 

I saw the spires of Oxford 

As I was passing by, 
The gray spires of Oxford 

Against a pearl gray sky. 
My heart was with the Oxford men 

Who went abroad to die. 

The years go fast in Oxford, 

The golden years and gay. 
The hoary Colleges look down 

On careless boys at play. 
But when the bugles sounded war 

They put their games away. 

They left the peaceful river. 

The cricket field, the quad. 
The shaven lawns of Oxford 

To seek a bloody sod — 
They gave their merry youth away 

For country and for God. 

God rest you, happy gentlemen. 
Who laid your good lives down. 



8 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

Who took the khaki and the gun 

Instead of cap and gown. 
God bring you to a fairer place 

Than even Oxford town. 

These lines are a confirmation of Lowell's Com- 
memoration Ode of fifty years ago. 

The motive of the college man is also manifest in 
what might be called interpatriotism. The student 
loves his owm country and his fellow citizens much. 
He loves all countries and his human brothers more. 
In the Great War French students fought for France 
and British students too fought for France. They 
also fought for liberty and fraternity, for all. Ox- 
ford, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh men died for Eng- 
land and Scotland, but they also died for ravaged 
Belgium and for damaged humanity. American 
college students enrolled and served in danger-zones 
long before America entered the war. They made 
the great sacrifice for other people than their own. 
As President Eliot, speaking to the Harvard men at 
the time of the Spanish War, said : " What are the 
fundamental and legitimate motives . . . which lead 
one to enlist? There are two which seem to me 
very weighty ; and these two really make but one, but 
that one how strong ! The first is the sense that every 
member of human society is mainly indebted for his 
own character, resources and happiness to the slowly 



Motives for Entering the Service 9 

developed qualities and slowly accumulated resources 
of the particular society into which he was born. 
Society gives the individual everything which makes 
his life valuable to him ; he, in return, owes his life 
and his all to society whenever its interests are im- 
perilled. This principle applies in a tribe of sav- 
ages, but with greatest force in the most civilized so- 
ciety." ^ The first members of the Harvard broth- 
erhood who were laid in their gTaves in Erance were 
saluted in these words : " Ce sera une date his- 
torique, cette journee d'automne ou nous avons en- 
seveli en terre de France nos amis, conduits au petit 
cimetiere avec un piquet de soldats frangais et 
americains, les corps converts du Star Spangled Ban- 
ner et du Tricolore. Sur leur tombe, notre colonel 
prononga ces simples mots : ' je vous salue, enfants 
d'une noble race ; reposez dans cette terre de France 
oil vous etes tombes pour la plus belle cause ! ' " 

There is a still more fundamental motive dwelling 
in the bosom of the student. It is hard to interpret 
this motive. It should not be called the longing for 
adventure. Such a motive is more or less unworthy. 
It may be called the sense of duty. It is rather more 
than an imperative. It may be called spiritual un- 
rest, but it is more than an emotion. It is rather a 
yearning for life, — for life fuller, richer, more com- 

1 Boston Herald, May 21st, 1898. 



10 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

manding, more consuming. It is a feeling that one 
must have experience — an experience that touches 
all life, even the universal and the eternal. It is 
the cosmic sense, urging and moving in the young 
soul. To this motive Alan Seeger gave voice: 
" Suddenly the world is up in arms. All mankind 
takes sides. The same faith that made him sur- 
render himself to the impulses of normal living and 
of love, force him now to make himself the instru- 
ment through which a greater force works out its in- 
scrutable ends through the impulses of terror and 
repulsion. And with no less a sense of moving in 
harmony with a universe where masses are in con- 
tinual conflict and new combinations are engendered 
out of eternal collisions, he shoulders arms and 
marches forth with haste." -"^ 

Akin to this cosmic sense is shown the spirit of 
supreme sacrifice and of moral passion, which be- 
longs to all youth, but belongs especially to the stu- 
dent. This sense of sacrifice and of passion has 
been peculiarly significant in this war. The break- 
ing and crushing of the morals and the morale of 
life by Germany awakened the keenest indignation 
in the soldier student. He did not count the cost. 
He felt somewhat as Pascal says of Jesus Christ on 
the cross : " I must add my wounds to his." The 

1 Letter: The New Republic, 22nd May, 1915. 



Motives for Entering the Service 11 

crusader is the youth, and he rejoices to venture all. 

" For my purpose holds 
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 
Of all the Western Stars, until I die." 

In deep contrast to such a worthy motive, two 
more and very personal conditions emerge. The 
student is free from domestic responsibility and from 
vocational engagements. JSTeither wife nor child 
looks to him for daily bread. JSTeither professional 
duty nor industrial nor commercial service com- 
mands him. He is foot-free. Indeed, he is in- 
clined to believe that a military training may prove 
to be a very acceptable preparation for the business 
which he finally may choose. 

In all these motives and conditions, too, one fur- 
ther great movement is evident. It may be called — 
the instinct of the spiritual in man. It is the im- 
pulse to rescue, to help, to serve. It is a fundamen- 
tal feeling. It is found in every worthy bosom. It 
constitutes the gentleman. It is not a matter of or 
for argument, not a balancing of advantages and dis- 
advantages. It may not be even a part of that great 
Anglo-Saxon service, which we denominate duty. 
Why did you enlist ? — Why shouldn't I enlist ? — 
is the questioning answer — One cannot do other. 
Such feelings are instinctive in all good men, but 



12 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

are especially instinctive in the bosom of tlie college 
man. 

For as an Oxford don says : " The beauty of life 
lies not in living, nor in health and vigor of body, 
nor in the flash and speed of the mind, but in living 
with a noble energy, which enlists and mobilizes the 
noble nature for the doing of noble things. To rise 
to the measure of a man and to attain to the just 
beauty of a full humanity consists in gaining con- 
version of the soul and in entering the service of 
mankind. He who has turned his eyes to an ideal 
good which is more worth while than life itself has 
found life; for he has become a living soul, con- 
verted to the light. He who has entered the 
service of mankind in order to realize among men 
and for men the ideal good which he has seen 
has entered into the only perfect joy of living; for 
he has hid his life with that of his fellows in the 
common life which is the only true life of man." ^ 

In all these lifting and moving sentiments there 
were present two other feelings deserving recogni- 
tion. Students were inclined to depreciate their own 
place and function. They did not wish to be " made 
much of." They despised eulogy. They couldn't 
bear laudation, as if their acts were unusual. They 

1 " Mothers and Sons in War Time," by Ernest Barker, 
pages 4, 5. 



Motives for Entering the Service 13 

had wit and humor to realize their conditions. In 
serious hours too they thought of being afraid of 
death as death. They did have a questioning 
whether when the crisis of a great command might 
be heard, they would prove true. It was the quick- 
ening question that belongs to a gentleman. It was 
inevitable. The answer, too, was equally inevitable. 
They met their supreme ordeal without flinching. 
They died with a cheer. 

American college men, students and graduates, 
moreover, have entered every war which their coun- 
try has fought. Such enrollment belongs to every 
nation. Tablets are placed on the walls of the uni- 
versities of Germany, giving the names of their sons 
who fell in the War of 1870. Tablets are also set 
up in the universities of Italy, commemorating the 
students who fought two generations ago for their 
once sadly divided, now nobly united, land. The 
spirit which is felt and the words which are heard 
in American colleges in the World War, were also 
manifest in the Civil War of the United, and the 
Confederate, States. The passion of all college 
youth for native land and for man seems to be one — 
lasting as life, broad as the world, deep as the deepest 
human instincts and emotions, indivisible as human- 
ity itself. 



II 



BEFOEE THEl ENTEANCE: OF THE TNITED STATES 

Under the spell of such motives, college men, both 
graduate and undergraduate, entered and served in 
the war. Their service began at the very beginning. 
The kind of service, offered from August and Sep- 
tember of 1914 up to the month of April, 19 lY, was, 
of course, in many respects unlike that given after 
the entrance of the United States. The earlier serv- 
ice was manifestly far less important and far less 
general. It was, however, of diverse sorts, and also 
it took on many elements of the picturesque as well 
as of the heroic. 

The kinds of particular service were no less than 
five in number. These five were the American Vol- 
unteer Motor Ambulance Corps, the American Ambu- 
lance Hospital in Paris, Hospital Units outside of 
Paris like that of or for Servia, the American Dis- 
tributing Service, and, most picturesque of all, the 
Foreign Legion. There were, in addition, not a few 
services of miscellaneous, and even individualistic, 
character. The United States embassies, aiding 

14 



Before the Entrance of the United States 15 

American citizens' relief committees, serving in can- 
teens, giving help in relief work in Belgium and 
Prance, represent the more important of such miscel- 
laneous and individual work. 

The American Volunteer Motor Ambulance Corps 
was formed and directed by Richard ISTorton, son of 
Charles Eliot ISTorton of Harvard. The work of this 
Corps, as described by Norton himself, in February, 
1916, was of three sorts. One was what he calls the 
risky and very hard work done during a battle, in 
rescuing the wounded and bearing them back to sta- 
tions where surgical attention could be given. There 
was, also, what l^orton calls, " Our regular job " : 
" the post duty, the daily going and coming from 
certain stations just back of the line to the hospitals 
with the occasional casualties. During the winter 
months one carries more sick and sorry than one 
does wounded, but there is a never-ending trickle of 
these latter. . . . We sat down for the winter, and 
posts were arranged to which the wounded are 
brought. Just who picks out these posts I have 
never discovered, but the general rule is that they 
should be as near the actual fighting line as the con- 
dition of the Toads and general safety permit the 
cars to go. "We have served two such posts. One 
was all right, though, owing to the mud which pre- 
vented the close approach of our cars, the stretcher 



16 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

bearers had a weary long walk with their painful 
burden. The other, however, was to my mind most 
quaintly placed, as it was on the crest of a ridge and 
in plain view of the enemy. Though the doctors' 
tents and dug-outs were sheltered by a cluster of 
pines, the coming and going of the cars were per- 
fectly obvious and daily drew the fire of one of the 
enemy batteries. ... At both posts the men did 
duty for twenty-four hours at a stretch, and had 
tents pitched under the trees in which they cooked 
their picnic meals and took what rest they could. 
Most of the time it rained, and it was always cold. 
To my way of thinking a tent is a beastly thing. A 
considerable portion of my life has been passed in 
them, and no one can convince me they are anything 
but disgusting. . . . However, they are better than 
sitting in the mud, so at the posts we sit and get damp 
till the relief comes, and then hustle back to the base 
camp, where there are no satisfactory means of get- 
ting dry, but where you mop yourself up and steam 
over any form of fire you or your friends can pro- 
duce. You see, there is not much in that kind of life 
but plain, hard, uncomfortable work. So any one 
who thinks he is coming out here to wander over the 
stricken field doing the Sir Philip Sidney act to 
friend and foe alike, protected from harm by the mys- 
tical light of heroism playing about his hyacinthine 



Before the Entrance of the United States 17 

locks, had better stay home. This hero business will 
only win him the Order of the Wooden Cross. What 
one really does is to look like a tramp who has passed 
the night in a ditch and feels as though he were doing 
ten days ' hard ' for it. That is what the ordinary 
work is." ^ 

There is a third kind of work of the Motor Am- 
bulance Corps which Mjr. JSTorton calls " en repos." 

" 'No corps can go on indefinitely at the front. 
The men get worn out and the cars get out of order. 
During the early part of this winter our cars stood 
in the open where the mud was so bad that we often 
had to pull them out in the morning with the lorry 
before we could start. There was so little water that 
sometimes there was insufficient for the radiators. 
Under such circumstances cleaning the cars was en- 
tirely out of the question, and any but absolutely es- 
sential repairs had to wait till we could move some- 
where else. When, finally, we were relieved by a 
French convoy, only one-third of our cars could go, 
and several of the men were working on their 
nerve." -^ 

The second general form of service lay in what 

was known as the American Ambulance, or Amer- 

1 " The Harvard Volunteers in Europe," by Howe, pages 
193-196. 

2 Ibid., pages 196-197. 



18 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

lean Hospital, in Paris. The opportunity for med- 
ical service in Paris was opened in the spring of 
1915. The first medical unit to be represented was 
that of Western Reserve University and of its affil- 
iated hospital, Lakeside, which served from January 
to April. The Harvard Medical School provided a 
surgical unit, also, for three months of this year. 

Outside and beyond the most outstanding surgical 
service of Paris was the service rendered in Servia in 
the first year of the war. This contribution, given 
under the American Bed Cross Sanitary Commis- 
sion, and under the leadership of Doctor Richard P. 
Strong, Professor of Tropical Medicine in the Har- 
vard Medical School, was of the utmost significance. 
Soon after his arrival, in April, Doctor Strong or- 
ganized an International Health Commission in or- 
der to promote the enforcement of medical and surgi- 
cal orders in all parts of Servia, and also to coordi- 
nate the work of the British, the French, the Rus- 
sians, the Americans, as well as of the Servians, in 
promoting the health of the people. In this work 
were engaged public health physicians, sanitary engi- 
neers, sanitary inspectors, and laboratory experts of 
various types. To stamp out contagious diseases, 
and especially typhus fever, was the great purpose of 
the Commission, and this purpose was fulfilled with 
extraordinary efficiency. 



Before the Entrance of the United States 19 

Another form of work in whicli the college men 
had a primary part, and which has received little 
mention, is the American Distributing Service. Un- 
der this general union, many sorts of work were 
done and under different organizations. Perhaps 
the chief part of its work was in giving instant relief 
to the most obvious necessities of French hospitals. 
Supplies were gathered up, some coming from Amer- 
ica, and delivered at the hospitals according to their 
need. Sorting out and delivering hospital socks and 
slippers, bales of underclothes, bolts of cloth, surgical 
instruments, represent types of the diversity of the 
work. In the month of August of the year 1915, 
more than forty-four thousand articles were given 
out, which included material for operating rooms, as 
surgical instruments, sterilizing apparatus, bandages 
and linen. The hospitals thus helped numbered 
more than seven hundred. 

But perhaps the most picturesque, as certainly the 
best known of all these forms of service, lay in the 
Foreign Legion of the French Army. It was a most 
democratic organization. A member has written of 
it, saying: — 

" Many of the men are educated, and the very low- 
est is of the high-class workman type. In my room, 

for instance, there are ' Le Petit Pere U ,' an 

old Alsatian, who has already served fourteen years 



20 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

in the Legion in China and Morocco; the Corporal 

L , a Socialist well-known in his own district; 

E , a Swiss cotton broker from Havre; D 

C , a newspaper man, and short-story writer, 

who will not serve in the English Army because his 
family left England in 1Y45, with the exception of 
his father, who was captain in the Eoyal Irish Fusi- 
liers ; S , a Fijian student at Oxford, ' the blond 

beast' (Vide Zarathustra) ; von somebody, another 
Dane, very small and young; B , a Swiss car- 
penter, born and bred in the Alps, who sings, when 
given a half liter of canteen wine, far better than 
most comic-opera stars and who at times does the 

ranz-des-vaclies so that even Petit Pere U claps ; 

the brigadier M , a little Russian, two or three 

Polish Jews, nondescript Belgians, Greeks, Rouma- 
nians, etc." -^ 

In the Foreign Legion were found not a few col- 
lege men among whom Victor Chapman, Harvard 
'13, and Alan Seeger, Harvard '10, stand forth in 
moving worthiness, — both of whom made the great 
sacrifice. 

The number of college graduates and undergrad- 
uates who entered this quintette of services was not 
large. But the spirit, the enthusiasm, the devotion 
of those who thus enrolled themselves was of the 

ilbid., pages 145-146. 



Before the Entrance of the United States 21 

highest and deepest character. It was a service both 
individual and human. It was not supported by 
love of America in the degree which the later service 
inspired. It was a service rendered out of a love 
for humanity and in the desire to be of individual 
worth. The element of camaraderie was not present 
as it was in the college halls of the years '17 and 
'18. But the sense of individual duty, privilege, 
devotion, rose to its highest red-crested level. The 
college men of America never showed themselves 
more heroic than in services thus rendered in the 
months and years previous to the first week of April 
of the year 191Y. 

As moving and inspiring a spectacle as was fur- 
nished by any set of college men is found in the 
Rhodes scholars who gave themselves to the service 
in Belgium. About four hundred Americans have 
availed themselves of Cecil Rhodes' foundation, since 
its establishment in 1902, in becoming students at 
Oxford. About three hundred of the^m entered the 
service. The beneficence of their presence and work 
in Belgium in the days of the German occupation is 
a part of the great contribution which was rendered 
under the direction and inspiration of Herbert Clark 
Hoover. Mr. Hoover, himself a graduate of Leland 
Stanford University, was, by reason of his experi- 
ence, as well as because of the highest personal quali- 



22 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

ties, abundantly qualified to guide and to inspire his 
fellow graduates of American colleges who them- 
selves had been at Oxford. Of them the great inter- 
preter of Belgium, in the years of its Inferno, Mr. 
Brand Whitlock, has said: 

" They came as volunteers, to work for no other re- 
ward than the satisfaction of helping in a great human- 
itarian cause. The work never could have been done 
without them, or half so well by men who had been 
paid for their labor. I suppose tiie world has never 
seen anything quite like their devotion; it used to 
amuse, when it did not exasperate, us, to see the Ger- 
mans so mystified by it ; they could not understand it, 
and were always trying to find out the real reason for 
their being there. ... It was, in fact, as fine an exam- 
ple of idealism — American idealism — as, in its ulti- 
mate organization and direct management, it proved to 
be of American enterprise and efficiency. The young 
men were under the heaviest adjurations from all of us 
to maintain a strict neutrality, and this they all did. 
JSTot one of them was ever guilty of an indiscretion, not 
one of them ever brought dishonor upon the work, 
or upon their nation, or its flag, or upon the various 
universities whose honor they held in their keeping 
and on which they reflected such credit." ^ 

1 " Belgium," by Brand Whitlock, United States Minister to 
Belgium, I., pages 409-410. 



Before the Entrance of the United States 23 

Men of such character, of course, would be secured 
under the conditions laid down by Mr. Rhodes' trus- 
tees. In the first circular issued by the trustees, it 
was said that they desired " as Scholars students of 
power and promise, and representative types of the 
manliness, culture, and character of the communities 
from which they come." ^ 

Such devotions, more individual than institutional, 
were contemporaneous with movements which were 
rather institutional than individualistic. 

A significant development of the last and of the 
present generation of academic life lies in the associa- 
tion and cooperation of the colleges and universities. 
This academic development is a microcosm of what 
has occurred in the nations of the world. Among 
these educational societies are found the Association 
of State Universities, the Association of American 
Universities, the Association of American Colleges, 
the Association of Urban Universities, the American 
Association of University Professors, the Association 
of American Law Schools, the Association of Ameri- 
can Medical Colleges, and the American Association 
of Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations. 

These associations, — a list to which, long as it is, 
several others might fittingly be added, — created a 
spirit of co-working and of inter-institutional service 

i"The Rhodes Scholarships," by Parkin, page 114. 



24 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

which, in the three years preceding the American 
declaration of war, were devoted to the welfare of 
the nation and of the world. The common devotion 
thus secured in and through the colleges for the na- 
tion and for the nations becomes the more marked 
when seen in contrast with the lack of academic co- 
operation prevailing in the period of the Civil War. 
In that period each college gave richest service but 
gave it largely as an individual unit of society. 

The various organizations and agencies, new and 
old, established . for making the services of the col- 
leges effective in the great war were both general and 
special, transient and lasting. Some of them were 
clearing houses of activities, while others were di- 
rectly operating forces. 

In point of time the first of these organizations was 
the Intercollegiate Intelligence Bureau. This Bu- 
reau was an agency set up' for the purpose of assign- 
ing places in the government service to college men 
and women. With headquarters in Washington, its 
chief officer and, in a sense, its founder, was Dean 
William McClellan of the University of Pennsyl- 
vania. On its establishment in February, 1917, 
Secretary Baker said that the organization was " a 
gift to the nation, a gift of preparedness, alike for 
service in war and in peace." In making a report 
reviewing the work. Dean McClellan wrote : — " We 



Before the Entrance of the United States 25 

have spent a busy, and, we believe, a useful year in 
trying to fulfill our obligations and living up to our 
ideals. We have organized branches at about two 
hundred colleges, technical and agricultural schools 
throughout the country and city committees, com- 
posed of representative graduates, in the larger cen- 
ters of the ISTation. Using entirely a decentral- 
ized system and responding to the definite 
calls made upon them by our Division of Serv- 
ice Calls at our office here, these branches have 
had the satisfaction of knowing that about four 
thousand of the men and women nominated by them 
have been appointed to positions of responsibility in 
the service of the N^ational Government. All of 
these positions called for highly trained specialists 
in professional and technical fields. Roughly speak- 
ing, about 50 per cent, of them represented commis- 
sions in the Army or IsTavy. Every nomination ac- 
cepted and also the many nominations made in good 
faith which did not result in appointments, were 
thoroughly investigated before being sent in both by 
our branches and by us, and we have the satisfaction 
of sincerely believing that no finer body of loyal cit- 
izens can be found than the men who are now serving 
the country and who found their proper places 
through the agency of this Bureau." 

The second event in the earlier academic history 



26 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

was found in a conference held in Washington on 
May fifth of the same year of 1917. In Continental 
Hall on that day, about one hundred and fifty repre- 
sentatives of the leading colleges and universities as- 
sembled. They were called together by President 
Hollis Godfrey, of the Drexel Institute, Philadelphia, 
serving as chairman of one of the committees of the 
Advisory Commission of the Council of National De- 
fense. This conference, after prolonged and warm 
discussion, issued a statement which voiced the feel- 
ing of the college officers of that critical time. The 
members declared that their single thought and desire 
were to summon their every resource and to give the 
nation, without reservation, all their facilities, dedi- 
cating themselves to the supreme ideals out of which 
both their institutions and the nation were born. In 
particular they afiirmed that they were willing to 
change courses of studies and their calendar-year in 
such ways as would most effectively fill the needs of 
the nation. They asked that plans be made and 
published for the closest cooperation between the gov- 
ernment and the universities. They expressed a 
wish for information regarding the methods of the 
government in carrying on the war in order that their 
own forces might be the more thoroughly mobilized. 
They also intimated a desire to know the methods 
which are adopted by colleges and universities of the 



Before the Entrance of the United States 27 

allied countries in meeting the conditions of the war. 
This conference was of the utmost value in uniting, 
solidifying and energizing college sentiment respect- 
ing the seriousness of the condition and the rights 
and the duties of the higher institutions of learning 
in the prosecution of the war. 

A third organization relating to the colleges bore 
the name of the ISTational Advisory Committee for 
Aeronautics. This organization was in its constitu- 
tion in part only academic. But in it six outstand- 
ing institutions, Massachusetts Institute of Technol- 
ogy, Cornell University, Ohio State University, Uni- 
versity of Texas, University of Illinois, and Uni- 
versity of California, had the prevailing and controll- 
ing interest. In and through these schools were 
trained aviators to the number, at times, of about a 
thousand a month. As aviation is primarily a sci- 
entific work it was fitting that those following this art 
should be trained in schools of science. 

A fourth item in this academic martial interpreta- 
tion related to the War Department Committee on 
Classification of Personnel in the Army. This com- 
mittee, organized largely by Professor Walter Dill 
Scott of N^orthwestem University, had for its pur- 
pose the classification of men of draft age and con- 
dition on the basis of education and other allied qual- 
ities. This body made a distinct contribution in 



28 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

impressing upon the governmental authorities the 
value of scientific training as a military factor. In 
creating this factor it was made plain that the ef- 
ficiency of the scientific and other schools in train- 
ing graduates and undergraduates as officers, was 
most important. 

Mention should also be made of a further educa- 
tional force although this force belonged less to the 
higher learning than did several other agencies. It 
was the Federal Board for Vocational Education. 
This Board, originally organized under the Smith- 
Hughes act, was concerned largely with the training 
of mechanics and technicians. 

The sixth agency, and one of the more important, 
was the American Council on Education. The 
American Council on Education represented some 
fifteen educational Associations of the United States, 
and was formed primarily to aid the government in 
meeting certain needs of the war conditions. It also 
served to unite these educational bodies in a com- 
mon purpose and to interpret the aims and the meth- 
ods of each to the other, ^ot only was a better un- 
derstanding thus established between the Associa- 
tions themselves, but the government was enabled to 
use efficiently an instrument which proved of inval- 
uable service. The Associations, too, were benefited 



Before the Entrance of the United States 29 

by a leadership, the lack of which, in their relation 
to national work, had been keenly felt. 

The purpose of the American Council on Educa- 
tion, or the Emergency Council on Education, is best 
stated in a paragraph taken from one of its own 
records : 

" To place the educational resources of the country 
more completely at the service of the ^National Gov- 
ernment and its departments, to the end that, through 
an understanding cooperation, the patriotic services 
of the public schools, colleges and universities may 
be augmented ; that a continuous supply of educated 
men may be maintained ; and greater effectiveness in 
meeting the educational problems arising during and 
following the war may be secured." 

The American Council on Education had charge of 
the Publicity Campaign for the Students' Army 
Training Corps. Directors were appointed in every 
state, the cooperation of all colleges, universities, pub- 
lic schools, and other institutions and organizations, 
was sought, a great amount of " literature " was is- 
sued, and a large correspondence carried on. 

Because of the urgent need of nurses, at the re- 
quest of the Surgeon General of the War Depart- 
ment, the Council took upon itself the duty of ar- 
ranging for courses of twelve weeks' duration, for 



30 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

the preliminary training of nurses in colleges and 
universities. So well did the Council succeed in this 
task that, at the signing of the armistice, over fifty 
institutions had pledged to offer such courses. A 
campaign, too, had been arranged to secure women 
of essential fitness for nursing, — ten thousand of 
whom the Council had promised to obtain and to 
have their training completed before the 1st of July, 
1919. 

Through its efforts scholarships for French women, 
scholarships for invalided French men, and for Rus- 
sian soldiers were established. Over two hundred 
French women, under its auspices, came to the 
United States to enter its colleges and universi- 
ties, — the college fees of whom were met by the in- 
stitutions receiving them. Forty invalided French 
men were brought to this country under conditions 
similar to those obtaining in the case of the women. 

The Council had charge of the visits to the United 
States of the British Educational Mission and of the 
French Educational Mission. 

These facts indicate only a few of the great services 
given by the American Council on Education. That 
its work will be of vital importance in the future is 
assured. It already has outlined for itself a course 
of activities which include International Educational 
Kelations, Educational Information and Standards, 



Before the Entrance of the United States 31 

Educational Policy and Organization, Education for 
Citizenship, and the Training of "Women for Public 
Service. 

The National Research Council was fittingly 
named as an agency of the higher military education. 

It was established by the Academy of Sciences in 
the year 1916, as a measure of preparedness in the 
event of war. In 1918, the Council was taken over 
by the government of the United States, and, after the 
armistice, in the spring of 1919 it was reorganized as 
a permanent institution. 

In an executive order of the President of the 11th 
of May, 1918, its work was made to have a six-fold 
relation: (1) the quickening of research in the sci- 
ences and in their application to the useful arts, in 
order to increase knowledge, to strengthen national 
defense, and to contribute in other ways to the public 
welfare; (2) the surveying of the larger possibilities 
of science, the forming of comprehensive projects of 
research, the developing of proper means for utilizing 
scientific and technical resources of the country in 
conducting these projects; (3) the promotion of co- 
operation in research, at home and abroad, to secure 
concentration of effort, and so on, but, at the same 
time, to encourage individual initiative as being of 
fundamental importance to the advancement of sci- 
ence ; (4) to bring American and foreign investigators 



32 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

into active cooperation with the scientific and tech- 
nical service of the War and ISTavy Departments, as 
well as those of the civil branches of the Government ; 
(5) to call the attention of scientific and technical 
investigators to the importance of military and indus- 
trial problems in connection with the war, and to the 
furthering of the solution of these problems by spe- 
cific researches ; (6) the gathering and collating of all 
scientific and technical information, in cooperation 
with Governmental and other agencies, rendering 
such information available to duly accredited per- 
sons.^ 

Associated in the Council were representatives of 
national scientific and technical societies, of the 
United States Government, of other research organ- 
izations, and of people specially trained, and by na- 
ture fitted, to promote its plans and purposes. 

The Council was and is composed of a central 
governing body, an Executive Board, and of thirteen 
divisions. These thirteen divisions were divided 
into two classes. Divisions of General Relations and 
Divisions of Science and Technology. Under the 
first heading were included the Government Division, 
the Division of Foreign Relations, the Division of 

1 Announcement of the Division of Educational Eelations, 
The National Research Council, published at Washington, 
D. C, August 15, 1919. 



Before the Entrance of the United States 33 

States Relations, the Division of Educational Rela- 
tions, the Division of Industrial Relations and the 
Research Information Service. In the Divisions of 
Science and Technology were the Division of Physi- 
cal Science, the Division of Engineering, the Divi- 
sion of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, the Di- 
vision of Geology and Geography, the Division of 
Medical Sciences, the Division of Biology and Agri- 
culture, and the Division of Anthropology and Psy- 
chology. The men forming each division were 
chosen from every field of knowledge and training 
which fitted them for the special work. 

The Division of Educational Relations made a 
survey of all American educational institutions and 
of all educational conditions in general, in America, 
to learn of the possibilities for scientific research, and 
to encourage, to inspire and to train men having the 
proper qualifications for this most important service. 
It was and is the aim of the Council to cooperate 
with the universities in establishing favorable condi- 
tions, and in seeking out and stimulating men to un- 
dertake scientific research. 

Perhaps the most important of all these diverse 
agencies and institutions was the organization known 
as the Committee on Education and Special Training. 
The nature of this agency is well indicated in a letter 
of the Secretary of War written February 20, 1918, 



34 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

and addressed to the presidents of educational insti- 
tutions : — 

" The exigencies of the War have emphasized very 
strongly the value of the educational institutions of 
the nation in connection with our military effort. 
The schools and colleges of the country have with ad- 
mirable spirit placed their resources at the disposal 
of the War Department and other branches of the 
Government. Much splendid work has already been 
done in training men for the Army, for example — 
in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, the Aviation 
Ground Schools, the Ordnance Stores courses and in 
the training of various kinds of specialists. 

" The desirability of having a single agency in the 
War Department to deal with the many problems of 
education and training which continually arise has 
been made evident. For the purpose of organizing 
and coordinating all of the educational resources of 
the country with relation to the needs of the Army, 
I have, therefore, appointed a new committee of the 
General Staff to be known as the ' Committee on Ed- 
ucation and Special Training.' A copy of the Gen- 
eral Order naming this committee and defining its 
functions is enclosed. It will be the function of this 
committee to represent the War Department in its 
relations with the educational institutions of the 
country and to develop and standardize policies 



Before the Entrance of the United States 35 

as between the schools and colleges and the War De- 
partment. 

" The war has developed a demand for large num- 
bers of technically trained men. Until recently this 
demand has been felt especially for men of advanced 
training. I^ow, however, it extends to men with ele- 
mentary training, as mechanics of various kinds. In 
order to avoid unnecessary disturbance to essential 
industries through withdrawal of skilled men an 
effort will be made to give large numbers of men 
entering the service intensive elementary training 
along vocational lines. In the task of training these 
men the schools and colleges can be of the greatest 
assistance. It will be one of the first duties of the 
Committee on Education and Special Training to 
formulate definite plans in cooperation with schools 
and colleges for training these men." 

Under this order were inaugurated various meth- 
ods for the training of mechanics and technicians, but 
in particular and more important for the present pur- 
pose was thus established what is historically the most 
unique development of the martial academic life — 
the Students' Army Training Corps. To this organ- 
ization a following chapter is devoted. 

In the paragraphs that have been concerned with 
these eight forces and agencies the writer has yet not 
forgotten the Reserve Officers' Training Corps. The 



36 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

Reserve Officers' Training Corps was established in 
about one-tbird of all tbe colleges and universities. 
A dire need of tbe American Army was of properly 
trained officers. To tbe colleges tbe government 
turned for tbe filling of tbis need. Among tbe gen- 
eral principles noted in tbe Act of June 3, 1916 is: 
" It sbould be tbe aim of every educational institu- 
tion to maintain one or more units of tbe Reserve 
Officers' Training Corps in order tbat in time of na- 
tional emergency tbere may be a sufficient number of 
educated men, trained in military science and tactics, 
to officer and lead intelligently tbe units of tbe large 
armies upon wbicb tbe safety of tbe country will de- 
pend. Tbe extent to wbicb tbis object is accom- 
plisbed will be tbe measure of tbe success of tbe Re- 
serve Officers' Training Corps." In carrying out 
tbese principles a tborougb course of training was or- 
ganized wbicb included botb tbe theoretical and prac- 
tical parts of tbe making of a soldier. Tbe course of 
study embodied topics as remote and diverse as tbe 
international relations of America from tbe day of 
Columbus to tbe present day, tbe intimate relation- 
ship between the statesman and tbe soldier, and train- 
ing in horsemanship and target practice. The gen- 
eral course was comprehensive of military education, 
uniting many and diverse subjects. 

Tbe education that was thus given for a period of 



Before the Entrance of the United States 37 

two years in certain colleges proved to be of great 
worth in the subsequent training of the camp and in 
the active operations of the field. Merged for a time 
in the Students' Army Training Corps, the Reserve 
Officers' Training Corps was reestablished soon after 
the demobilization under authority of an act of the 
twenty-third of ISTovember, 1918. The subsequent 
value in times of peace of military training in the 
colleges belongs to a later part of academic history. 

As one considers the list of organizations founded 
by, for or among the colleges and universities sev- 
eral reflections emerge. 

The first remark concerns the diversity of function 
rendered by these academic forces. This diversity 
extended from the training of officers and of privates 
for military, naval, and aerial service to the discov- 
ery and publication of knowledge, from the hearten- 
ing of professors and students in the individual col- 
lege to the mobilizing of all the forces, intellectual 
and administrative, athletic and social, of all colleges 
and universities. The second remark concerns the 
importance of these diverse functions in a nation 
which, by history, tradition, and preference, is a non- 
military power. It was to the men of liberal educa- 
tion and association that the government turned for 
material for counselors, for leaders and for officers. 
West Point and Annapolis were, of course, great re- 



38 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

sources. But it was recognized that the material for 
oificers furnished by the colleges was, in many re- 
spects, quite as adequate as that offered by these spe- 
cial schools. Liberal learning was again proved to 
be a first-rate foundation and force for technical 
training and for military efiiciency. 

It is also plain, in the third place, that the divers- 
ity of these functions and the energy thus employed 
sprang out of the desire and the power of the college 
to do its utmost for the welfare of the nation and 
of humanity in the great crisis. Trustees, teachers, 
students, recognized that the supreme and fundamen- 
tal purposes of the higher education, — purposes in- 
carnated in its own history, — were at stake. They 
were therefore prepared and quickened to give their 
all. 

A fourth reflection is found in the pleasant judg- 
ment that in this variety of services, services not in- 
frequently crossing each other in methods and means, 
occurred a smaller waste of force, both material and 
human, than would easily be believed possible. 
There was so much to do, so few to do the much, the 
time was so short, and the emergency so critical, that 
the temptation to waste, to jealousy, or to inefficiency, 
was slight. If one bureau found itself superfluous, 
it could easily disband or change its function, trans- 
ferring to another agency its special duty. Often 



Before the Entrance of the United States 39 

the very success of a board promoted its dissolution. 
The history of the war could in a sense be measured 
by the making and the unmaking of the forces which 
had accomplished their individual tasks. 



Ill 



FINANCIAL EELATIONS OF THE COLLEGES 

Throughout the academic year of 191 6-1 Y, the 
colleges and universities were in a condition of un- 
certainty. The world crisis betokened a crisis aca- 
demic. This uncertainty and critical condition 
showed itself in manifold forms. ISTo form was more 
insistent; or more alarming, than that relating to 
income and to the number of students attending as 
a basis of income. The picture which the academic 
authorities were obliged to present to themselves in 
the year 1916-17 regarding finance was of extreme 
significance. The picture was composed of both fact 
and inference, of general truth and of its immediate 
application. 

The colleges and universities of the United States 
possess several sources of income. One of the more 
natural and normal is found in the fees paid by the 
students for instruction. One source, also natural 
and normal, is the income from endowment — en- 
dowment which is the result of gift or of bequest, and 

is invested usually in good bonds and first-rate stocks. 

40 



Financial Relations of the Colleges 41 

In certain institutions the endowment is invested at 
least in part in revenue-producing real estate. 

In addition to these three sources, certain institu- 
tions receive special grants or gifts. The State uni- 
versities are the beneficiaries of their respective Com- 
monwealths and are largely supported by grants 
made, annually or biennially, by special act or gen- 
eral statutes by the Legislature. Certain municipal 
universities, likewise, are the beneficiaries of the tax- 
duplicate of their respective cities. Some denomina- 
tional colleges are the recipients, too, of donations 
from the churches of which they are a part, more or 
less integral. It is also further to be noted that prac- 
tically all institutions find in their trustees and other 
friends benefactors who, with a certain degree of reg- 
ularity, and usually with great generosity, give to the 
support of the educational trust to which they are 
committed. ' 

But, omitting the State universities, it is to be said 
that the two first-named sources, fees and income 
from endowment, are the principal reservoirs whence 
flow the support of the typical American college and 
university. These two sources are, at the present 
time, about equal in amount, and it is not a little re- 
markable how nearly equal these two amounts have 
maintained themselves in the last four or five dec- 
ades, a period which covers the time in which insti- 



42 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

tutions of the higher learning have made the furthest 
and most rapid progress. 

In the year 187Q, 49 per cent, of the income of our 
colleges was derived from fees paid by the students, 
and 51 per cent, from the revenue of the endowment. 
Twenty years after, in 1896, the proportion paid by 
the students had risen to 60 per cent., and that pro- 
vided by capital had fallen to 40 per cent. In the 
year 1916 the proportion had so moved up and moved 
down that it had reached almost the middle point be- 
tween the extremes of 1876 and 1896, 55 per cent, 
being paid by students and 45 per cent, being drawn 
from the income of endowment. 

The steadiness of these proportions seems to be all 
the more remarkable when one recalls the vast in- 
crease of these two items. For in 1876 the income 
from productive funds was $2,060,182 and the in- 
come from fees was $1,984,811. In 1896 the in- 
come from productive funds had become $6,191,204 
and the income paid by the students $9,585,772. 
But in 1916 the income from productive funds had 
lifted itself to $18,246,427 and the income from stu- 
dents to the stupendous sum of $23,603,919. In 
forty years the increase in the gross amounts had, in 
the case of endowment, been multiplied ninefold and 
in the case of fees about twelvefold, and yet the pro- 
portional percentage had remained pretty steady. 



Financial Relations of the Colleges 43 

It is interesting, moreover, to note and to compare 
the different amounts received by colleges in the dif- 
ferent parts of the United States from students and 
from the annual endowment income. In the report 
of the Commissioner of Education for the year 1916, 
in the North Atlantic States about 58 per cent, of the 
income was derived from students' fees and about 42 
from the income of endowment. In the South At- 
lantic States about QQ per cent, of the income was de- 
rived from students' payments and 34 per cent, from 
the income of endowment. In the Southern Central 
States about 42 per cent, was derived from the fees 
paid by students and about 58 per cent, from the in- 
come of endowment; and in the Western States 45 
per cent, was derived from the fees paid by students 
and about 55 from the income of endowment. 

The facts regarding a few representative colleges 
and universities regarding the proportional amount 
of income drawn from students and from endowment 
become yet more interesting as the facts become more 
definite. In the year 1916 Harvard University drew 
$859,819 from the fees of students and $1,374,6Y7 
from the income of endowment; Yale University, 
$557,941 from the fees of students and $827,254 
from the income of endowment; Stanford Univers- 
ity, $98,273 from the fees of students and $836,527 
from the income of endowment; the University of 



44 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

Chicago, $708,175 from the fees of students and 
$1,094,254 from the income of endowment; Prince- 
ton, $221,220 from the fees of students and $267,643 
from the income of endowment; Columbia, $987,559 
from the fees of students and $1,255,619 from the 
income of endowment; Johns Hopkins University, 
$125,477 from the fees of students and $322,516 
from endowment; Amherst, $59,957 from the fees of 
students and $139,982 from the income of endow- 
ment; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, $429,- 
963 from the fees of students and $101,280 from the 
income of endowment; Williams College, $95,918 
from the fees of students and $83,156 from the in- 
come of endowment; Cornell University drew $622,- 
575 from the fees of students and $675,347 from 
the income of endowment. 

In a, preceding paragraph I deferred the consid- 
eration of the State universities in respect to their 
sources of income. For these universities form a 
class. They are supported out of the public chest. 
They are an integral part of the system of public 
education of each Commonwealth. The amounts 
drawn from the fees of their students and from the 
income of their endowments are usually relatively 
small. The larger share of the revenue lies in grants 
made from the public exchequer. The sums thus de- 
rived form pleasant and inspiring reading. In the 



Financial Relations of the Colleges 45 

year 1916-17 the University of California received 
from students the sum of $292,102 and from the 
State of California for current expenses $1,339,999 ; 
the University of Illinois, from students $236,150 
and from the State $1,636,500; the University of 
Indiana, from students $41,000 and from the State 
$534,000; the University of Iowa, from students 
$80,498 and from the State $519,Y00 ; the University 
of Kansas, from students $99,91Y and from the State 
$560,500 ; the University of Michigan, from students 
the large sum of $457,411 and from the State $1,- 
026,800 ; the University of Minnesota, from students 
$248,719 and from the State $1,415,663; the Uni- 
versity of Missouri, from students $114,725 and 
from the State $553,084; the University of 'Ne- 
braska, from students $85,214 and from the State 
$622,648; Ohio State University, from students 
$222,480 and from the State $868,361; the Uni- 
versity of Wisconsin, from students $452,090 and 
from the State $1,666,723. 

This record is indeed of inspiring force to one 
measuring the progress of a people in terms of intel- 
lectual instruction or of intellectual power. 

I have referred to the crisis which the colleges were 
facing in the academic year of 1916-17. Certain 
financial facts which helped to constitute this crisis I 
have stated, and other facts perhaps need no state- 



46 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

ment. But one simple fact cannot be stated with too 
great emphasis. It is the fact of the uncertainty of 
revenue which arose from the doubt attending the 
number of students who should be enrolled in these 
more than five hundred colleges and universities. 
The revenue was uncertain because the students, who 
normally would furnish about one-half of the rev- 
enue, formed a very doubtful quantity. Taking the 
whole country, there were about twenty per cent, 
fewer S'tudents in the colleges in the year 1917-18 
than in 191 6-1 Y. The proportion differed in many 
institutions. These differences are shown in the 

following table : 

Enrollment Enrollment 

Name of College 1917-18 1916-17 

Allegheny 352 403 

Amherst 367 505 

Bates 428 473 

Boston College 638 675 

Boston University 2,801 2,525 

Bowdoin 341 434 

Brown 916 1,136 

Bryn Mawr 484 447 

Clark 115 167 

Colby 360 422 

Colgate 434 581 

Columbia 5,914 6,566 

Cornell 3,859 5,264 

De Pauw 874 930 

Conn. College for Women 237 200 

Dartmouth 1,020 1,501 



Financial Relations of the Colleges 47 

Enrollment Enrollment 

Name of College 1917-18 ■ 1916-17 

Goucher 701 612 

Hamilton i 200 220 

Harvard 2,998 4,976 

Holy Cross.. 621 592 

Indiana University 1,656 2,008 

Iowa State University 2,475 2,896 

Knox 603 724 

Lafayette 442 634 

Lehigh 650 805 

Massachusetts Agricultural 495 695 

Mass. Institute of Tech 1,670 1,937 

Middlebury 288 372 

Mount Holyoke 850 824 

New Hampshire 552 653 

New York University 6,937 7,476 

Norwich 181 196 

Ohio State University 4,187 5,077 

Oberlin 930 1,023 

Pennsylvania State 2,073 2,352 

Princeton 866 1,555 

Purdue 1,644 2,136 

Eadcliffe 603 675 

Ehode Island State 249 336 

Simmons 1,054 1,088 

Smith 1,946 1,917 

Stanford 1,555 1,991 

Syracuse 3,150 4,088 

Trinity 166 246 

Tufts 1,667 1,737 

University of California 5,660 6,460 

University of Cincinnati 2,068 2,131 

University of Illinois 4,851 5,876 



48 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

Enrollment Enrollment 

Name of College 1917-18 1916-17 

University of Maine 816 1,195 

University of Michigan 4,722 5,976 

University of Nebraska 3,586 4,362 

University of Pennsylvania 6,620 8,832 

University of Rochester 526 564 

University of Vermont 580 672 

University of Virginia 738 1,059 

University of Wisconsin 4,098 5,020 

Vassar 1,125 1,102 

Wellesley 1,612 1,572 

Wesleyan 397 504 

Western Reserve University 1,417 1,583 

Williams 424 548 

Worcester Polytechnic 425 639 

Yale 2,129 3,262 

Total 102,353 123,327 

Regarding the reduction in the number of students 
for the year and years following the academic period 
of 1917-18 what prophet would have dared to fore- 
tell? It seemed probable that the draft age would 
be lowered below twenty-one. Most boys enter col- 
lege about the age of eighteen and one-half years. 
One argued that they would not be called to the col- 
ors. The increase of pay, moreover, for work was 
compelling. The actual need of workers was rather 
persuasive to the conscientious youth. The boy of 
eighteen, ineligible for service, might yet take the 



Financial Relations of the Colleges 49 

place of a brother of twenty-four who had gone to 
France. A general dislocation of forces and values, 
intellectual, commercial, industrial, turned the atten- 
tion of youth from forces academic. In times of 
war scholarship is in peril of being silent. 

What, therefore, were the colleges to do in arrang- 
ing their scale of expenditures for the forthcoming 
year and years ? That was the question with which 
boards of trustees, faculties, and academic executives 
were deeply concerned in the closing months of the 
academic year of 1917-18. 

In answer it was said that there were certain meth- 
ods of a negative sort worthy at least of consideration. 
One of the more impressive developments of the last 
decade and decades is the vast increase in numbers of 
the teaching staff. Such a development, in a condi- 
tion like that obtaining in 1917-18, almost inevitably 
ceases. With this ceasing also ceases a certain in- 
crease in the expense side of a budget. Along with 
this limitation may arise a material limitation in 
the stopping of the erection of new buildings or of 
additions to equipment. Of course, such a negative 
action is simply analogous to the method pursued in 
any business of cutting down cost. 

A second method of a more or less negative type 
was found in the lessening of expenses through the 
enlistments of teachers in the national service. In 



50 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

not a few colleges the names of scores of men were 
borne on the official registers and catalogues as absent 
on leave in the national service. Some of these men 
received no, or small, pay from the Government. 
They were serving for a " dollar a year." In the 
case of others a certain moderate stipend was derived 
from the Government, and from the Government 
only., In the case of others — a large number — the 
Governmental pay was augmented by an amount 
made up by the individual college which still bore 
the enlisted men upon its official registers. The de- 
sign in this case usually was to make the pay derived 
from both the college and the Government equal to 
that formerly derived from the college. In still 
other instances, the amount of compensation was de- 
termined not by uniform principle or method, but 
by individual arrangement made between the person 
engaged in the national service and his college. 

A third method lay in the sad measure of cutting 
down the salaries of the teaching staff and of admin- 
istrative officers. This measure was seldom suffered. 
Such a reduction would not only have hurt most de- 
serving members of a most important profession, but 
it would have also damaged the profession in the eyes 
and heart of the public. Such a damage would have 
been nothing less than a disaster to the whole com- 
munity as well as to the profession itself. The dis- 



Financial Relations of the Colleges 51 

aster would have become even more disastrous in 
view of the increasing cost of living. 

A fourth method of reduction opened. It con- 
sisted in the suspension, for the time being, of de- 
partments, either by complete elimination or by 
union with other departments. Latin and Greek 
were, be it said with deep regret, declining forces in 
the academic curriculum. Greek had, much to the 
sorrow of a large part of the older thinking members 
of the community, approached the vanishing point of 
Hebrew. Latin each year had been comimanding a 
smaller clientele. These two literatures and lan- 
guages might for the hour be united in their teaching. 
The same method might be pursued with French and 
German, as they had been formally united in an early 
academic period, under the general head of " Mod- 
ern Languages." German in the year 1917-18 was 
elected by only one-half of the number of students 
who chose it in the year preceding. The number of 
students in French was about doubled. In this rela- 
tion many small sections of students — and the num- 
ber of such sections was and is more numerous than 
usually believed — might be reduced or entirely elim- 
inated. Large classes are not effective as educational 
conditions. But for the time being they might be 
suffered. 

Turning now to the positive method, it was said 



52 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

that income miglit be increased througli tlie gifts of 
trustees and of friends, gifts made for immediate 
expenditures. Sucli a method was and is normal. 
Trustees are bound to protect and to promote trusts 
entrusted to them. The war was to end some time. 
The demand for educated men was to be vast at the 
end of the war. The colleges were to give such men 
to the community. A vision of duty, of privilege, 
cannot but influence trustees to hold together the com- 
plex and serious agencies which contribute to the 
higher education. They are ever to be prepared to 
advance these agencies whenever the door of opportu- 
nity opens. They are to be at once conservative and 
progressive. They are to conserve, to save, to cause 
to endure, to hold fast all that the past offers. They 
are also to go on, to advance into new realms of en- 
larging opportunity. ISTever is a board of trustees 
to sound retreat in any institution which ought to 
live. 

This method of raising money for the immediate 
need was better, in my judgment, inexpressibly bet- 
ter, than the method of borrowing to meet emergen- 
cies. The method of borrowing, I am sorry to say, 
certain colleges did adopt. For debts are to be paid. 
It was recognized that the future would lay special 
demands upon the American college, and that the 



Financial Relations of the Colleges 53 

meeting of these subsequent demands would be inter- 
fered with by the paying of old debts. 

Boards of trustees, to whom are primarily com- 
mitted the financial interests of American colleges 
and universities, as to the faculties are committed the 
scholastic concerns, are, as a rule, composed of men 
high in purpose, able in intellect, sensitive to public 
needs, and devoted to their academic duty. They are 
frequently not well informed regarding the place of 
the higher education in a democracy. But such lack 
of information and of consequent sympathy is quite 
as often due to an inefficient president as to any other 
cause. Yet as a body they have vision — though not 
often a far-off one — and they also have what is of 
greater and of greatest importance, capacities for con- 
certed and high resolution and action whenever the 
occasion strongly calls. The closing months of the 
war in the history of American institutions of the 
higher learning were apparently to constitute such an 
occasion and the occasion was continued in the fol- 
lowing years. These bodies of trustees did prove able 
to do their own great duties, and to quicken other men 
to do their duties likewise in the crisis. 

To the taking of risks (though not too boldly), 
to the making of sacrifice, and to the upholding of 
intellectual standards in an industrial age, in a 



54 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

period of necessary and glorious military force, these 
boards of trustees gave themselves willingly, fear- 
lessly, and triumphantly. Tor such self-giving, peo- 
ple ultimately receive richest rewards : — the con- 
sciousness that in a time of public doubt, anxiety, 
and fear, they have helped to transmute things ma- 
terial through personal devotion into truth and into 
righteousness. 



IV 



THE STUDENTS AHMY TEAINING COEPS 

The montlis of the spring and early summer of the 
year 1918 were black for the cause of the allies. 
Germany had made her peace with Russia. The 
Prussian spirit had revived not only in Prussia but 
throughout the German Empire. The transfer of 
troops from the Eastern to the Western front had 
been made. The British Empire with the backs of 
her soldiers to the wall, as Haig said, was being put 
to the test. America had begun to send her troops 
over, but not in the numbers or having the training 
which the terrible seriousness of the cause demanded. 
The westward rush of German divisions threw doubt 
only on one point whether the contest would reach 
its early consummation in the capture of Paris or in 
the capitulation of the channel ports. Among all 
the allies it was a time of deep questioning; among 
some a time of racking doubt; and among a few, a 
time of paralyzing dismay. The fate of the individ- 
ual nations and of a democratic world was trembling 

in the balances of war. 

55 



56 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

It was under sucli circumstances and in such a 
mood that the United States began to consider the 
question of a larger participation through her forces 
in the world's conflict. Chief among the measures 
debated was the increase of her man power. 

The Act of Congress putting down the draft age to 
eighteen instinctively and inevitably laid a condition 
on the students of the college of unexampled serious- 
ness. This seriousness was intimated in a circular 
issued by the Committee on Education and Special 
Training in the month of March, 1918 : 

" The college student body constitutes a great military- 
asset if fully developed. Many are material for junior 
officers and non-commissioned officers. One hundred thou- 
sand young men systematically instructed say twelve 
hours a week during the college year, and with summer 
training camps, would produce at the end of each sum m er 
during the period of the war a body of trained young men 
who would be of immense value in forming larger armies 
if the wax', as now seems likely, is much prolonged. In 
our judgmenx the military value of training all the college 
students of the country is alone more than sufficient to 
justify such a plan. 

At the same time a well-conceived and comprehensive 
training system would make the students feel that they 
were doing their share in a manner approved by the Gov- 
ernment, and were justified in continuing their studies." ^ 

1 Committee on Education and Special Training, War De- 
partment Circular, March 28th, 1918. 



The Students Army Training Corps 57 

The average age of entering college is eighteen 
plus. The average age of graduation, therefore, is 
twenty-two. The proposed conscription, therefore, 
immediately and inevitably led or would lead to the 
emptying of all college classes into the army, and also 
of preventing most men from entering college at all 
in the academic year of 1918-119. In order to 
forestall such a catastrophe the Act establishing the 
Students' Army Training Corps was passed. The 
Act of Congress, approved May 18th, 1917, an Act 
commonly known as the Selective Service Act, was 
amended by the Act of August 31st of the following 
year. It was of the utmost significance. It author- 
ized the raising and maintaining by voluntary induc- 
tion and draft, of a Students' Army Training Corps, 
and authorized the Secretary of War to form such 
Corps in educational institutions. The purpose in 
establishing these units was to utilize the plant, 
equipment and organization of the colleges for select- 
ing and training candidates for office, and technical 
experts for service. Colleges and professional schools 
formed the body of the institutions in which such 
units were authorized. Their number was about five 
hundred, representing colleges and schools of almost 
every grade and condition. The colleges became, like 
the railroads, essentially government institutions. 
All students who entered the American colleges in 



58 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

the autumn of 1918, either as freshmen or as upper- 
classmen, being eighteen years of age and of physical 
fitness, became by their entrance, soldiers of the 
United States. 

These students pursued a course of study which 
was either military or colored by military conditions. 
ISTo less than eleven hours of each week were assigned 
for drill and work therewith connected. In addition 
fourteen hours of lectures and recitations were pro- 
vided from subjects which had or might have a cer- 
tain relationship to military affairs. These subjects 
included English, French, German, mathematics, 
physics, chemistry, biology, geology, mineralogy, 
geometry, meteorology, topography and map-drawing, 
asitronomy, descriptive geography, hygiene, sanita- 
tion, psychology, mechanical and free-hand drawing, 
surveying, economics, accounting, history, interna- 
tional law, military law and government. From this 
score of subjects the student made such selection as 
the college officials thought fitting. One course, 
however, was required of every member of the Stu- 
dents' Army Training Corps, generally known as the 
underlying ideas of the war ; but this course was in- 
terpreted generously as standing for a course in the 
aims of the war, or in history, government, econom- 
ics, philosophy or modern literature. It is to be 
jioted that Latin or Greek or Biblical literature was 



The Students' Army Training Corps 59 

not included in the course ; and that German was in- 
cluded. 

An essential military camp was established on 
every campus. The Campus Academicus became the 
Campus Martins. 

All of these soldier students, or student soldiers, 
were required to live in barracks provided by the col- 
lege and to have their meals at a common mess. The 
program of each day was essentially arranged as fol- 
lows: 

6:45 A.M. Reveille 

Y :00 Mess 

7:30— 9:30 Drill 
9:30 — 12:00 Recitation and Study 
12:15 P.M. Mess 

1:00— 4:30 Study and Recitation 
4 :30 — • 5 :30 Athletics and recreation 
5 :30 Mess 

Mess to 7:30 At student's disposal 
7 :30 — 9 :30 Study under supervision 
10 :00 Taps 

The requirements of the Government, moreover, 
went beyond the order of each day. It concerned 
the whole academic year as well. Each year was di- 
vided into four terms of three months each, begin- 
ning with the 1st of October. Each term was usually 
to be made a distinct unit of instruction by each 
college. 



60 Colleges and Universities in the Oreat War 

In the development of the Students' Army Train- 
ing Corps the Federal Government approached more 
nearly than by any other method or measure to the 
German procedure of the control of the higher educa- 
tion. The distance was indeed immense, for the con- 
trol of education by the State was and is a permanent 
Teutonic method. The State directs the course of 
study. The State determines the emphases in teach- 
ing and learning. The State appoints the professors. 
The State recognizes the truth of Bismarck's remark 
— " that he who controls the schools, controls the 
future." The German State is the educational di- 
rector. To the State the university teacher takes the 
oath of allegiance. His professional patriotism is a 
method of professorial advancement. For disobedi- 
ence the State punishes him by removal or degrada- 
tion or other penalty. Freedom of teaching is a 
somewhat ridiculous professorial liberty interpreted 
in the light of the State's directorship. For the gen- 
eration previous to the outbreak of the war, history 
was made the tool of German patriotism and of the 
depreciation of other nations. Geography was trans- 
muted into a scheme of colonial enlargement and ag- 
grandizement. Anthropology became a method of 
eulogizing the racial Germanic dominance. Biog- 
raphy, essay, poem, was made a means of projecting 
Germanic ideals. The atmosphere of the schoolroom 



The Students Army Training Corps 61 

and of university aula was the atmosphere of pan- 
Germanism. 

Such was the German autocracy in education, 
which, however, was thoroughly unlike the strictness 
and orderliness of American education. 

The pecuniary provision made by the Government 
for each soldier student was generous. The Govern- 
ment paid tuition fees, provided lodging in the college 
barracks, board in the college mess, and uniforms, and 
gave him $30.00 a month as wages. The charge for 
tuition differs in different colleges, but assuming that 
this charge is $150.00 a year, the Government prom- 
ised to pay for each student, $150.00 for tuition, 
$360.00 for lodging and board or $510.00, his wages 
of $360.00 and the cost of his uniform, making a total 
of at least $900.00. This arrangement formed the 
most generous provision ever made in the history of 
liberal education for the education of a great body of 
student soldiers. It had no precedent. 

Four distinct groups of citizens were immediately 
and generally concerned with this academic revolu- 
tion. They were the college faculty, the college trus- 
tees, the students, and the public. To this revolution 
the college faculties assented, if not with alacrity, at 
least with willingness and in cooperation. It was 
not, be it also said, the willingness of compulsion, 
but a willingness based on the assurance that this 



62 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

method represented one of the most effective forces 
for the winning of the great war. Facilities recog- 
nized as one of the advantages of the system the fact 
that the students felt a certain obligation to work, 
which under the individualistic system of the former 
time was somewhat foreign to certain groups. 

Trustees too, shouldered the financial and adminis- 
trative responsibility for housing and feeding these 
men with the same generosity with which they as pri- 
vate citizens gave to the " Y. M. C. A." or bought 
Liberty Bonds. The student, moreover, took, for a 
time, to this new life of the old and the new work, 
under unique conditions, with an enthusiasm bom of 
a generous and direct interest. But be it added that 
the enthusiasm somewhat cooled after a few weeks. 
The number of students, too, was large. In fact, 
the enrollment in the freshman classes of the best col- 
leges was far greater than had ever been known. It 
may be added that the cause of this increase was not 
to be interpreted as slackness. For these men as 
college students were subject to the same general 
terms — of either hope or fear, and far more fre- 
quently hope — of being drafted as if they had dwelt 
outside the college gateway. 

The fourth group concerned with this revolution 
was the people themselves. The people responded to 
this change with an enthusiasm akin to that of the 



The Students Army Training Corps 63 

boys. Education has become the great buman inter- 
est, and tbe American people recognized that this 
unique development of tbe bigber form of tbis inter- 
est was fraugbt witb tbe most tremendous potentiali- 
ties for knowledge, rigbteousness, and power, indi- 
vidual and national. 

In causing tbis transformation in tbe bigber edu- 
cation, tbe Government was moved by at least tbree 
considerations. First, tbe giving of relief from over- 
crowding in tbe cantonments. Second, tbe promo- 
tion of efficiency. Tbe efficiency was promoted by 
tbe elimination of tbe unfit and tbe discovering of 
tbe fit, and of tbe fittest for special jobs. For after 
a period, eacb man was assigned to military duty in 
one of tbe following forms : 

(a) Transferred to a central officers' camp. 

(b) Transferred to a non-commissioned officers' 
training scbool. 

(c) Transferred to a scbool for intensive work in 
a specified line. 

(d) Transferred to a technical training scbool. 

(e) Transferred to a cantonment to serve as a 
private. 

A tbird motive of tbe Government was tbe sav- 
ing of tbe colleges from disruption. Tbe draft 
would bave gone a long ways toward at least tbe tem- 
porary dissolution of tbe colleges. ISTo favoritism 



64 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

could or should have been shown by the government 
to the academic class. These men could not and 
should not have been made the subjects of exemption, 
as medical students were made, and properly made. 
Most men, too, would have declined to enter a col- 
lege that thus exempted them. They would have felt 
the implied shame of cowardice. The men who 
joined the college were still open to conscription as 
were men without the academic walls. They were 
allowed to stay in college for a time, just how long 
that time would be no one knew. It might have been 
for a single quarter or term. It might have been for 
several quarters; but whether the time were long or 
short, many men would in that time have succeeded 
in getting the college touch and the college vision 
would have dawned upon their eyes. 

In an effort to serve the college and in the purpose 
of the college to serve the nation a campaign for 
students was undertaken in each of the states. Con- 
ventions of college officers were called to promote gen- 
eral enthusiasm and to consider academic conditions. 
High school principals and superintendents were 
called on to quicken the interest of students in going 
on with their education. Parishes and churches 
were requested by the United States Committee on 
Education to present to their congregations the im- 



The Students Army Training Corps 65 

portance of both the higher education and of military 
service. Parents were encouraged to make all sacri- 
fices necessary to keep their sons and daughters in 
school. Series of letters were printed by the news- 
papers interpreting and emphasizing the advantages 
of the higher education. State and local superin- 
tendents of schools employed the agency of their office 
in arguing for the value of an education of an ad- 
vanced type. " It's patriotic to go to college " — be- 
came the common educational war-cry. 

Many and diverse were the arguments used in this 
campaign for the entrance of young men into the col- 
lege, and subsequently, into the United States army. 
The War Department issued special circulars urging 
entrance and enlistment. It was declared that engi- 
neers, chemists, physicists and geologists were as im- 
portant as riflemen. Liberal education and scientific 
training help, it was affirmed, to develop the qualities 
of research which are as necessary as narrow military 
efficiency. The entrance into college would prevent 
premature enlistment and would offer a proper outlet 
for patriotic zeal. The standards of education would 
be maintained and efficiency in winning the war pro- 
moted. The education and training thus given, ef- 
fective in war, would also become precious assets in 
the time of peace. The individual student would be 



Q6 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

made fit for service in the world, not only in the ensu- 
ing months but for his entire lifetime. Said the 
Commissioner of Education : 

" Not only is it necessary for the welfare of the country 
and the safety of our democracy when the war is over; it 
is equally important for the strength of our country while 
the war continues. We would all hope that the war may 
end soon, but it may be very long, and in war a people 
must prepare for every possibility. If the war should be 
long, there will be a great need in all the Allied countries 
for large numbers of men and women of the best college 
and university training for service both in the Army and 
in the industries directly connected with the war, and 
the colleges and universities of the United States must 
supply this need to a large extent for all the Allied 
countries. In some fields, as chemistry and the various 
forms of civil and industrial engineering, the demand for 
the trained men and women is already much greater than 
the supply. It is, therefore, a patriotic duty for young 
men and women who are prepared to enter college to do 
so and for those now in college to remain until their 
courses are completed, unless they are called for some serv- 
ice which can not be rendered so effectively by others. 
They should be encouraged to exercise that high form of 
self-restraint which will keep them at their studies de- 
spite all temptations for some more immediate service un- 
til they are prepared for the expert work without which 
the devotion and efforts of millions will be of little value. 

When the war is over and the days of reconstruction 
come, the call upon this country for men and women of 
the highest and best training for help in rebuilding the 
world will be large and insistent. For our own good and 



Tlie Students Army Training Corps 67 

for the good of the world we should be able to respond 
generously. Conditions in this country and our position 
among the peoples of the world will require of us a higher 
level of intelligence and civic righteousness than we or 
any other people have ever yet attained. This must be 
insured largely through the education of our schools." ^ 

The curriculum into which the student was intro- 
duced on his entrance into college was one of much 
detail. The program was in no small degree based 
upon the age of the students at the time of the open- 
ing of the colleges. The supposition was common 
that the war would continue for at least one year, and 
possibly for three or four. It was, therefore, de- 
termined that the older students of more than twenty 
years should remain in college only one term of 
twelve weeks ; those who had reached the age of nine- 
teen, two terms of twelve weeks each ; and those of a 
younger age would possibly be allowed to remain for 
three terms. For those whose outlook was of the 
briefest or briefer duration, the subjects prescribed 
were of a narrower sort, being quite entirely military, 
embracing subjects determined by the service pro- 
posed. It might include air service, ordnance, en- 
gineering, military law and practice, surveying and 
map drawing and motor transportation. The curric- 
ulum was held to professional subjects. For men, 

1 Letter from the Department of the Interior, Bureau of 
Education, Washington, August 15, 1918. 



68 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

however, of the earlier age of eighteen, a somewhat 
different program was prescribed of a broader type, 
but even in this broader type courses in military in- 
struction and war issues were included.^ 

While these teachings were being given to no less 
than one hundred and fifty thousand men in about 

1 The breadth of the instruction in history for instance is 
illustrated in a pamphlet issued by the Bureau of Education 
in 1917, entitled, "Opportunities for History Teachers — The 
Lessons of the Great War in the Classroom." In one paragraph 
of that work it is said : " The training of young people, and 
of the parents through the pupils, to take an intelligent part 
in the decision of public questions is important enough at any 
time; but it is peculiarly so in this war, whose meaning for 
the individual citizen is not so easily brought home. In 1823 
and 1824, when the Monroe Doctrine was under discussion, 
Daniel Webster referred to the people who thought that Amer- 
icans had no interest in the European system of mutual in- 
surance for hereditary rulers against popular movements. 
What, they said, have we to do with Europe ? ' The thunder, 
it may be said, rolls at a distance. The wide Atlantic is be- 
tween us and danger; and, however others may suffer, we 
shall remain safe.' Webster's answer to this question was 
strikingly similar to some of the utterances of President 
Wilson : ' I think it is a sufficient answer to this to say that 
we are one of the nations of the earth. . . , We have as clear 
an interest in international law as individuals have in the 
laws of society.' That was said long before the steamship, 
the ocean cable, the submarine, and the wireless had broken 
down still further our ' splendid isolation.' To-day we are 
fighting for our own rights, but over and above those special 
rights of our own are fighting for international law itself, 
without which no nation can be safe, least of all those demo- 
cratic governments which are less effectively organized for 
war than for peace." 



The Students' Army Training Corps 69 

five hundred colleges, the gains and losses of this mil- 
itary-academic program became apparent. The 
gains, and there were gains, and losses, and there 
were losses, academic and personal, educational and 
administrative, occurred under an authority that was 
divided. The original college officers had charge of 
the regular academic work. The military officers 
were in supreme control of the military side. These 
two administrations were going forward upon the 
same campus and at the same time. Authority was 
divided. It was only because of the mutual respect 
of those concerned, that collisions were so few and 
so slight. Academic standards were arbitrarily set 
aside; academic methods were contemned; military- 
standards, manners and methods were installed. Be- 
cause of the exigency college presidents and faculties 
were inclined to give up to the military dominance. 
The officers who embodied these conditions were us- 
ually young men, themselves students in college, other 
than the college to which they were assigned. They 
were immature, without experience, unable to under- 
stand relationships and naturally inclined to the ar- 
bitrary enforcement of rules and orders. The War 
Department sought to avoid confusion and collision; 
but confusion was inevitable and collisions not un- 
common. The command from the War Department 
that the officers should assist the educational authori- 



70 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

ties in securing from all men a full performance of 
their academic work iiad small meaning. Some of- 
ficers were unfit to do tlieir duty and they therefore 
did it with inefficiency, and with but little regard 
to either student or teacher. 

While this work of military training, and of a cer- 
tain type of liberal education, was going on, the ar- 
mistice was signed. The stopping of induction was 
ordered ISTovember 14th, and a few days after, 'No- 
vember 26th, a general demobilization of the one 
hundred and fifty thousand soldier students enrolled 
was ordered. The order for demobilization came as 
a surprise quite as great, and quite as disintegrating 
for the students as for the college itself. The sud- 
denness was somewhat disastrous. The harm done 
by the issuance of the order was well indicated by Ex- 
President Taft: — 

" No institutions in our country have been more helpful 
to the Government in carrying on the war than the uni- 
versities and colleges. From their students and recent 
graduates the War and Navy Departments have filled their 
training camps and recruited their officers. The greatest 
difficulty in making a republican army is in securing offi- 
cers. The wonderful adaptability of the American college 
boy saved the situation for the first two millions. When 
the second two millions had to be raised and officered the 
Government in effect commandeered every collegiate 
school of learning and made it into a military school, an 



The Students' Army Training Corps 71 

associate West Point or Annapolis. Rigid discipline was 
enforced under army or naval officers. Curricula and 
faculties were arranged to accord with the purpose, and 
the whole academic character of the institutions was aban- 
doned to aid the Government in the war. Thousands and 
thousands of cadets have been launched on a year's train- 
ing that would have made good material for young com- 
missioned officers in the army. They have now completed 
nearly a third of the school year. The colleges and uni- 
versities have made their plans for a full year. 

With the armistice and the coming of peace, the mili- 
tary departments of the Government, it is said, propose 
to discharge these cadets and to break up the plans to 
which the whole college system of the country has com- 
mitted itself for a year at great expense of time and money 
and effort. In the middle of the school year the cadets 
are to be thrown out of their courses and to be left with- 
out discipline and without definite aim or plan until next 
fall. This is greatly to be regretted. It is not fair to the 
colleges. They cannot resume their academic courses and 
life before next fall. It will leave them crippled and 
struggling for nine months. Mere money compensation, 
if forthcoming, will not be adequate. It is not fair to the 
cadets. A year's training of the kind already begun would 
be good for the boys and good for the country. It would 
be a useful step in beginning a system of universal train- 
ing. It would save the country from demoralization of 
its higher educational work. 

The cost to the Government of continuance until June 
would be small as compared with the waste involved in 
this sudden break up. It is not too much to say that the 
announcement from Washington is received with dismay 
by college authorities throughout the country. It may 
lead to a protest from them that the Administration will 
do well to heed. 



72 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

If the unfortunate policy is adhered to, it will give well- 
grounded support to the charge that the Administration is 
afraid to do what it knows it ought to do, because it wishes 
to escape the demagogic and cheap criticism that it favors 
unduly those seeking a college education." ^ 

The colleges liad not only revolutionized tlieir cur- 
ricula, they had also expended large amounts of 
money in the construction of barracks and of mess 
halls for their soldier students, these costing from a 
few thousand dollars up to sums as large as at least 
$200,000. These structures v^ere paid for out of the 
funds of the colleges themselves, under the assurance 
that the Government would finally compensate the 
colleges for such expenditures. After some months 
of delay, in some cases of more than a year, delays in 
many cases inevitable, however, the Government fin- 
ally adjusted these accounts and usually to the satis- 
faction of the colleges concerned. 

As one reviews this unique educational movement 
it is not difficult to count up its gains and its losses. 

Among the gains is to be noted an increase in the 
formal courtesy and good manners of the students. 
The uniform may or may not be becoming to the in- 
dividual taken by himself, yet, it is becoming and 
certainly impressive when it is seen upon a hundred 
or a thousand men. The manners of these men be- 

1 A Grave Injustice to American Colleges, published in 
many papers, November, 1918. 



The Students' Army Training Corps Y3 

came more constantly such as belong to gentlemen. 
Salutations were given witli gTeater constancy and 
freeness, — not that these items are at all of primary 
sigTiificance, but they do have at least some value, 
value inward as well as outward. For good manners 
in the college yard make the ordinary doings of life 
a bit more easy, and they, moreover, increase genuine 
self-respect. 

It is also clear that the regular habits of the stu- 
dent camp tended to promote health. The habits of 
the older college men are not habits. They are, 
rather, violations, eccentricities, irregularities, con- 
scious or unconscious. The college man sleeps at all 
hours or no hours at all. He eats at all hours or does 
not eat at all, and eats, when he does eat, what he 
likes. He exercises in such ways as please him and 
too often it pleases him not to exercise at all. He 
studies much or he studies little, and at such times 
and places as suit his daily and hourly convenience. 
Though such an interpretation appears to be a little 
too general, yet, there are scores of college men in 
every hundred to whom it can be fittingly applied. 
Contrast with such disorderliness a program such as 
obtained at most colleges : in which from the reveille 
at 6:45 and breakfast at 7:00, with drill at 7:30, 
every hour till taps at ten o'clock was occupied ! 
Such a program promotes health. 



74 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

Among these advantages was a third gain, to wit, 
students were well looked after by the military col- 
legiate authorities. The authorities knew where each 
student was, and how he was, and what he was doing 
with his time and with his own personal self. Super- 
vision was constant and detailed. Such vigilance 
was quite unlike the old academic laissez faire. I 
know very well the advantages and disadvantages of 
each method. Laissez faire, improperly applied, de- 
velops rashness, waste, intellectual, ethical and not 
infrequently utter wreckage. Supervision, properly 
used, promotes economy in spending one's complete 
forces. Supervision, improperly used, applied too 
constantly or too closely, tends to promote the infan- 
tile mind and will, without vigor or directness of per- 
sonality. It protects innocence ; it kills achievement. 
I venture to say that the older colleges or at least 
many colleges of the older time, erred on the side of 
giving too little supervision or too great freedom. 
They thought the student was a man. He was, but 
he was not quite so much of a man as they were in- 
clined to believe. Therefore, the faculty gave him 
an independence which he could not use well, and he 
wasted himself. 

The military college may be inclined to use vigi- 
lance too constant or too exact, but the reaction from 
the older system was not unfitting. And this vigi- 



The Students Army Training Corps T5 

lance of academic conduct and bearing produced in 
the year 1918 good results. 

Such watchfulness insured another gain. It was 
the gain of industriousness. The college man, made 
into a soldier, worked. He labored at his studies 
some eight hours a day or forty-eight hours a week. 
He labored at his drill some ten hours a week. 
Happy man! If he were poor, or semi-poor, in 
purse, he was not obliged to earn his living at 25 cents 
an hour. He was in the pay of the Government, and 
he was able to study. If he were rich, or half -rich, he 
had no leisure in which to spend money or to loaf. 
His mood was — Attention. The college man 
worked, and to teach men how to work effectively is 
also a chief end of higher education. It was proved 
that more work was done, and better work. This 
gain was both quantitive and qualitative. Yet, it is 
to be added, that this gain was vitiated by the 
interruption of the day's routine and also by a certain 
excitement under which the soldier student constantly 
labored. 

Closely connected with this advantage was the ad- 
vantage of obedience. The first duty of the soldier, 
whether that soldier be a student or an infantry man, 
is obedience. He is not under rules; he is under 
commands; he takes orders. The contrast between 
the directness and the apparent arbitrariness of the 



Y6 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

camp and the graciousness of a college of gentlemen 
is deep and wide. This obedience is to be prompt 
and absolute. Such a life is good for the soldier 
student for at least a time. It is well for him to be 
the subject or victim of penalty, and not to be the 
writer of excuses for absences. Indifference to law 
is an American failing. It is good for college men to 
obey law with promptness and exactness. 

A further gain was also apparent in the increase 
in the democracy of the college. The soldier's uni- 
form is typical. One of the first things which the 
authorities did to the men on their induction into the 
Students' Army Training Corps was to take from 
them their fraternity pins. One oath was adminis- 
tered, one mess was spread, one camp life was pro- 
vided, one drill was required, one set of tactics was 
learned and practiced, one comprehensive duty was 
imposed. Of course, official individualities were re- 
spected. Of course, the life of the officer was made 
unlike the life of the man of the ranks. The distinc- 
tion between the officer and the private was empha- 
sized with a stress which the civilian does not under- 
stand, but such distinction was declared to be neces- 
sary for orderliness. Yet, the general zones and 
strata of social demarcations which, in some colleges 
have been too characteristic, were either wholly cut 
down or largely wiped out. 



The Students Army Training Corps 11 

I also wish to refer to two more gains lying in a 
different plane from the gains accruing to the student 
body. One of the gains was found in the evidence 
which this transformation offered concerning the ad- 
justability of the college teacher. Too often has this 
teacher been looked upon as unbending in his meth- 
ods, fixed in his devotion to his scholastic ideas, and 
stiff in his interpretations of the means to be used in 
achieving results. Such has been the interpretation 
of the public. Those of us who live all our lives 
with college teachers have recognized that this inter- 
pretation was not so true as was commonly believed. 
The revolution proved that it was even more false 
than seemed possible. College teachers of Greek be- 
came chairmen of committees on building barracks 
and on running mess halls. Teachers of philosophy 
instructed in elementary French, and distinguished 
professors of Latin became interested in purchasing 
supplies for a post canteen. The professorial mind 
is not an unbending bar of steel, but rather, like 
water, it adjusts itself to the vessel which bears it. 

A further advantage was also of a similar sort. 
It was the impression of the public that the college is 
remote from human concerns. The public has often 
assumed that the college was separated from human 
affairs, and that the academic mind was quite foreign 
to common interests. Of course, the belief was false, 



Y8 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

so false was it, that it seemed unworthy to speak of 
it, mueli less to attempt to remove it. But the revo- 
lution proved to all who would receive evidence, that 
every interest lying outside of the academic gate- 
ways is of deep concern to the teachers dwelling 
within these gateways. The college student and the 
college teacher responded to the call of the colors and 
of the nation as no other body responded, — and I do 
not depreciate any response, — and such response the 
community not only recognized as normal and nat- 
ural, but also eulogized as belonging to the human 
order of the heroic. 

Such were some of the gains resulting from the aca- 
demic revolution, and they were gains of great worth. 

But there were losses also found in this academic 
revolution. These losses may be very largely put 
into the singular number. For the sum of them was 
a single loss. It was the loss of the higher education 
itself ; it was the loss of culture ; it was the loss of in- 
tellectual breadth ; it was the loss of liberal learning. 
Various may be the names and diverse the expressions 
used to indicate the loss. It is the loss of a sense of 
relationships^ of a certain intellectual freedom in 
knowing and in judging subjects, movements, men. 
A well-roundedness and balance, a power of reason, 
judgment, and large humanness, a sense of considera- 
tion for contrary principles and motives, means and 



The Students' Army Training Corps 79 

methods, a willingness to listen and to reflect, a power 
of weighing evidence and of assessing truths and 
facts at a just value, a genuine intellectual altru- 
ism : — these are and ever are the qualities and marks 
of the higher education which were brought into 
jeopardy. The higher education helps to make each 
citizen of the nation a freeman of the intellectual 
realm. Of course, breadth may easily become vague- 
ness and liberty, looseness, — as easily as individual- 
ity may become eccentricity; but to preserve the 
value of breadth and of liberality without narrow- 
ness, is the goal of the higher education. Yet it may 
be at once said that culture or cultivation is secured 
as much by the teacher as by the subject taught, be 
the subject even the great literatures or philosophies. 
For a boor may so teach Greek as to create boorish- 
ness; and a scholar may so teach carpentry as to 
promote scholarship and to nourish scholars. It is 
easy to believe that several of the required military 
subjects, taught with a sense of relationships, would 
always tend to develop men of great thoughtfulness 
and appreciation, of genuine education and culture. 
Though this comprehensive loss was chief, yet 
there occurred also two minor disadvantages. One 
was the lack of initiative, and the slightness of op- 
portunity for individual study and for personal inde- 
pendence. Each day, as I have said, was a program 



80 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

through which the students marched with the regular- 
ity of soldiers. To vary from the system, save for 
an exceptional and imperative reason, was impos- 
sible. Good as this system was for some men of the 
loose intellectual type and of moral laziness, it was 
for others, the worst possible process. It made the 
lock-step in education. 

Another disadvantage lay in a wholly different 
realm. It was the lack of that culture and inspira- 
tion which comes from the formal services of religion. 
Of course, the camp had its religious rights and soci- 
eties. Every regiment has a chaplain or chaplains. 
The " Y. M. C. A." in many and diverse ways per- 
forms a great service. Yet that place which the col- 
lege chapel fills in the usual academic order was 
lacking in the military college. Religion in college 
should represent the broadest teachings. It should 
embody at least these four principles : love as the law 
of life ; the perf ectability of the race ; the personality 
of God; and the immortality of the individual soul. 
The atmosphere which clusters about a proper daily 
chapel service, the military college lacks, and cannot 
do otherwise than lack. Such a service represents 
not only religion as such, but also religion as an in- 
spiring part of culture and a necessary element in the 
character of the noblest individual man. 

I should perhaps refer to one further condition 



The Students Army Training Corps 81 

which resulted from the academic transformation, 
which may be said to lie in the educational " No 
Man's Land." It is found in the condition of the 
ordinary undergraduate undertakings. These un- 
dertakings had become in the earlier time too numer- 
ous and too compelling. Avocations had displaced 
the vocation of the college undergraduate, yet, the 
avocation had and has its functions to perform. The 
college newspaper and magazine, daily, weekly, 
monthly, the musical and dramatic clubs, the debat- 
ing and literary societies, the athletic associations, 
these and many similar organizations and forces 
ceased to be, or at least ceased to live a vigorous life. 
To some students these informal forces formed and 
form the best of the college. To others they serve as 
leeches, drawing away the real academic blood. But 
whether for good or for ill, they practically ceased 
to function in the Students' Army Training Corps. 

Chief among such academic by-products is found 
the college fraternity. 'Next to the organization of 
the individual class, these societies of the students 
are the most important of all associations. They 
form a cross section of the academic life. The fra- 
ternity includes freshmen as well as seniors. It 
also goes beyond the day of graduation. Its alumni 
associations form an important part of its organiza- 
tion, giving counsel and support, financial and per- 



82 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

sonal, to the undergraduate chapter. With the 
establishment of the Students' Army Training Corps 
the fraternities closed their houses or at any 
rate, curtailed their activities. The requirements 
that the soldier students should live in barracks for- 
bade the use of houses for dormitory purposes. The 
few members not eligible for the training course by 
reason of age or of physical disability, used them; 
and in the few free hours of the day the men in khaki 
came to them as a place of refreshing. But for the 
first months of the college year of 1918-1919, they 
became rather a liability than an asset. On demobil- 
ization they resumed their normal functions. It 
may now be said that the fraternities in the Ameri- 
can colleges have, as fraternities, taken a great part 
in the war, no less than one-fourth of all the mem- 
bers of some fraternities being enrolled. If their 
members went forth as students and undergraduates 
of individual colleges, they also found deep inspira- 
tion and cause of hearty gratitude in their fraternity 
association. In their quarterly and other journals, 
the fraternities kept in close relationship with their 
brethren over-seas. 

A proper summary of all the comprehensive and 
diverse conditions establishing the Students' Army 
Training Corps is found in a personal letter, and yet 
not so personal as to forbid its present use, written 



The Students Army Training Corps 83 

a few days after the demobilization of the larger 
share of the corps, by the Secretary of War. Mr. 
Baker says : 

" The Students' Army Training Corps was, of course, 
primarily organized for military uses, but I was especially 
happy that such an arrangement turned out to be feasible 
because it seemed to me to be a way of keeping a large 
number of our American colleges from entire dissolution, 
and gave some promise of continuing academic traditions 
of the country during the war. It seemed to me that if 
the war was to go on for several years we would come to a 
situation in this country of having almost no academically 
trained men over a period of three or four years. Serious 
as this loss would have been in itself, a still more serious 
consequence of it would have been the break in the pursuit 
of the liberal studies, for the released army would un- 
doubtedly have gone eagerly to scientific and the so-called 
more practical courses, while the liberal studies of lan- 
guage and literature would have had a struggle to regain 
their places. 

" I think there are some compensations of the kind you 
suggest. Our Army experience has taught a good deal 
about the health of young men, and while I am by no 
means clear that we can get the same sort of zeal among 
college students for military training in times of peace as 
we got when there was an immediate war objective ahead 
of the men, I still feel that there are some things for the 
colleges to learn from the training camps, and they are 
particularly the things implied in the soldier's motto of 
keeping one's self ' fit to fight.' I share your feeling, too, 
that the discipline and courtesy of the military establish- 
ment are handsome attributes in the normal relation of 



84 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

young men to one another and to their instructors, and 
I hope it will be found possible for tis to retain some of 
these habits as a permanent gain." ^ 

In a further letter written July 19th, 1919, Secre- 
tary Baker gives a benediction to the colleges : — 

" The settlements recently completed between your insti- 
tution and the United States Government terminate the 
contractual relations entered into last autumn for the pur- 
pose of carrying into effect the plan of the Students' 
Army Training Corps. While that plan was a logical if 
not imperative step at the time when it was undertaken, 
when a long war appeared to be in prospect, and when it 
was necessary to mobilize the entire energies of the nation, 
the signing of the armistice on November 11 prevented 
it from ever being fully carried into effect. The abrupt 
termination of the S. A. T. C. before sufEcient time had 
elapsed for its complete development, the interruptions 
due to the influenza epidemic and to other conditions in- 
cident to the early stages of organization, created diffi- 
culties which could not fail seriously to disturb the order 
of academic life. I am, therefore, glad of this oppor- 
tunity to express to you my recognition of the patience, 
devotion and skill with which both teachers and execu- 
tives played the parts which they were asked to play. 
The proposals of the War Department almost invariably 
met with a prompt and cordial response, and a willing- 
ness to make very genuine sacrifices where these seemed 
to be required by the nation's military need." 

1 Letter of December 30, 1918. 



V 



THE ENLISTED 



While the Students' Army Training Corps was 
performing its important functions on the college 
campus, undergraduates and graduates were en- 
listing in the service at home and overseas, and 
were doing the duties which belong to enlisted 
men on training ground and in camp. They 
had, also, for a year and a half, been already enlist- 
ing. The numbers of such enrolled from the alumni 
and students of each college and university it 
is impossible to learn with fullness and accuracy. 
Indeed the number of such men is not usually 
kno^vn to the colleges themselves. For graduates 
enlist and fail to inform the college; and even 
if colleges are informed, records are behind the 
facts of enrollment and of service. But from re- 
ports made by colleges and universities it is estimated 
that not far from 180,000 graduates and under- 
graduates were enrolled in the service of the United 
States outside and beyond the Army Training Corps 

of the autumn of 1918. They were found in all 

85 



86 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

branches of the service.^ Of course the infantry 
included the largest share, but the artillery called 
out a peculiarly commanding response in the men of 
trained brain. Of this number of 180,000, about 
one^third were undergraduates. The 120,000 who 
had received their degrees formed about one-third of 
all living graduates. The proportion enrolled was 
simply immense, especially as one considers the num- 
ber of graduates who were ineligible by reason of age 
or of physical disabilities. From no section of Amer- 
ican society was poured forth so large a proportion of 
soldiers. The reasons for an oifering so magnificent 
are intimated in the first chapter. 

The number of college men, however, both un- 

1 The military and naval service is a general term, vrhich 
applied to specific instances of service, might result in con- 
fusion. At a meeting of representatives of colleges, held at 
New Haven, May 10th, 1918, a definition of service, military 
and naval, vras adopted. By this definition such service 
includes : 

" 1. Men who have voluntarily enlisted or who have been 
drafted and mustered into the service; and 

" Men who have been commissioned and who have accepted 
the commission and have been called into service. 

" 2. Men who are actually engaged in service in Europe with 
the army or navy as workers under the direction of the Y. M. C. 
A., the Knights of Columbus, the Hebrew Y. M. A., or the Red 
Cross. 

" This is to be interpreted as including men engaged in am- 
bulance service, whether serving directly as part of the mili- 
tary organization, or in some semi-independent unit as the 
Norton-Harjes unit." 



The Enlisted 87 

dergraduate and graduate, who entered tlie service it 
is impossible to state with accuracy. The following 
table is based largely on figures approved by the sev- 
eral hundred colleges and universities concerned, and 
also in part on estimates furnished by the institutions 
themselves, or by others knowing the academic con- 
ditions. For it is to be acknowledged that many col- 
leges themselves are ignorant of the number of gradu- 
ates or former students who were enrolled. The in- 
stitutions of each State gave the following quotas : — 

Alabama 1,514 Maryland 2,138 

Arizona 271 Massachusetts 14,157 

Arkansas 863 Michigan 9,726 

California 7,037 Minnesota 3,499 

Colorado 2,262 Missouri 4,378 

Connecticut . 9,758 Montana 1,281 

Delaware 264 Nebraska 2,487 

District of Colum- Nevada 298 

bia 855 New Hampshire . . . 1,668 

Florida 606 New Jersey 4,261 

Georgia 2,190 New Mexico 169 

Hawaii 41 New York 14,635 

Idaho 426 North Carolina 2,855 

Illinois 8,885 North Dakota 1,019 

Indiana 5,817 Ohio 10,143 

Iowa 5,994 Oklahoma 1,548 

Kansas 3,069 Oregon 1,340 

Kentucky 2,979 Pennsylvania 14,423 

Louisiana 1,095 Porto Rico 19 

Maine 1,735 Rhode Island 1,396 



88 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

South Carolina 1,281 Washin^on 4,618 

Tennessee 3,065 West Virginia 1,343 

Texas 2,325 Wisconsin 3,837 

Utah 1,608 

Vermont 1,684 Grand total 178,824 

Virginia 4,071 

These tables serve to call out certain impressive 
inferences. 

The statistics prove the active loyalty of college 
students and of college graduates. They give no in- 
timation of a fugitive and cloistered virtue. They 
convey no suggestion of remoteness from human con- 
cerns or of indifference to human problems or of con- 
tempt for human sufferings. They disprove the oc- 
casional and loudly expressed belief, or the quietly 
held suspicion, that the college youth of America are 
characterized by gilded superficiality (and not a very 
deep gilding either), by contemptuous thoughtless- 
ness, and by unreasoning selfishness. They prove 
that the college heart, the college mind, the college 
conscience, are as sound as oak, as true as steel, as 
pure as the best diamond. 

The statistics also give evidence of the worth of 
the American system of the higher education. This 
system has been passing through transformations. 
From the classical to the scientific, from the ancient 
linguistic to the modem linguistic foundation, from 



The Enlisted 89 

the natural sciences to the social sciences, has pro- 
ceeded the academic movement. Content has been 
altered, emphasis transferred, methods changed. 
But the purpose has remained deep and permanent. 
The moving spirit has suffered no " sea " or other 
" change." To educate their mind to think, to pro- 
mote reflectiveness as a mood, to transmute knovs^l- 
edge into vi^isdom, to train the heart unto tenderness 
without gushingness, to give a sense of aspiration 
without visionariness, to make sympathy broad with- 
out becoming thin or artificial, to give delicacy to the 
moral nature without over-refinement, to discipline 
resistance without stubborness and firmness without 
obstinacy, to give to character graciousness without 
obsequiousness, to the gentleman aggressiveness with- 
out obtrusiveness — such are some intimations of the 
purpose of the higher education. These purposes 
have been maintained. The higher education has 
kept watch to insure the integrity of the individual 
conscience and the soundness of the individual in- 
tellect. The result is superb. 

A further inference, of a broader and more im- 
mediate sigTiificance, relates to the essential worthi- 
ness of the American society whence are drawn these 
youths. They are in a sense picked youth. They 
represent a saving remnant of a long educational 
process of their generation and of generations pre- 



90 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

ceding. Each of theni is perhaps one in thirty of 
the companions who began their primary school with 
them. Yet they are in fact part and parcel of the 
whole community. From their integrity we have a 
right to infer the integrity of the whole group 
whence they have been drawn. 

One further inference is to be added. It is the 
inference that the governors of the American colleges 
may, in modesty, give to themselves heartiest con- 
gratulations. The teacher in the American college, 
in becoming a teacher, gives up many of the prizes 
of life which allure not a few of his contemporaries 
and comrades. He surrenders every hope of wealth. 
He knows he is to be contented with a simple com- 
petency. He crushes out any desire, even if he ever 
had one, of general public distinction. Yet he does 
put before himself the belief that he is, in quietness, 
educating men to think clearly, that he is inspiring 
men to make a life rather than a livelihood, and that 
he is training leaders for the more public concerns 
which he is not privileged to undertake. These re- 
wards are more precious than rubies. His class room 
becomes a gateway to the field of broad service. His 
chapel talks may be recalled in straightening out a 
battle line or in obeying a military command. His 
personal counsel may aid in planning a campaign, 
civil or military. These and similar rewards of the 



The Enlisted 91 

college teacher — tlie real force in the American col- 
lege — are also rewards which belong in their proper 
share to every trustee and benefactor. They are re- 
wards, moreover, which are given to all who are 
privileged to aid in making the American college a 
teacher of wisdom in and for a democratic govern- 
ment and a creator of forces for service on land and 
sea, under the sea, and in the air. 



VI 



COLLEGE: OF'FICEKS IN WAE, SEEVICE 

The service offered by the officers of the colleges was 
quite as impressive as that rendered by the students 
and graduates. The enrollment was made up of 
professors of each department and by deans, presi- 
dents and other executives of every order. Of all 
departments, the medical naturally furnished the 
greatest proportion. Of every one hundred officers 
who entered the service more than one-half were 
found to be medical — physicians, surgeons and 
teachers. The assignment to their new work was 
usually made on the basis of their special training 
and preferences. Teachers of surgery became heads 
of surgical units in the field or in base hospitals. 
Teachers of bacteriology and of public health were 
enrolled as health commissioners in Roumania and 
Servia. Teachers of pathology set up their labora- 
tories at Rouen. Teachers of ophthalmology were 
drafted as special examiners in the office of the 
surgeon general. Teachers of nervous diseases cared 

92 



College Officers in War Service 93 

for large areas of distressing illness in American 
camps and French cities. Teachers of dermatology 
gave their wisdom in criminal and other most serious 
problems. Teachers of pharmacology found abun- 
dant opportunities for the compounding of drugs. 
Teachers of pediatrics were busy with the problems 
which war creates in children. Teachers of physiol- 
ogy and psychology found the crises made by shell- 
shock most compelling. Teachers of preventive 
medicine were required to inspect drinking water 
and other health conditions as presented in many 
camps. In other fields than the medical, equally 
important services were given. Professors of botany 
were drafted into the examination of botanical war 
products and into work for the United States Agri- 
cultural Department. Professors of chemistry were 
called into chemical research ; professors of physics 
into the study of methods for submarine protection; 
professors of transportation into work for the War 
Board ; professors of anthropology into the laying out 
of camps; professors of forestry into experimenting 
on farms and in forests ; professors of law into serv- 
ice as judge advocates; professors of politics and 
government into lecturing on patriotism; professors 
of lumbering into estimating the cost of building 
ships and camps ; professors of French into teaching 
conversational French to nurses and doctors. Such 



94 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

assignments were normal, natural and were also 
proved to be effective. 

But other assignments were made, wliicli were in- 
deed less normal and proved to be far less effective. 
It is not bard to present examples. Professors of 
geology were commandeered as inspectors of fabrics. 
Professors of astronomy were made instructors in 
language. Professors of economics were selected as 
instructors in military science. In the early stages 
of the war, in Prance, under the democratic influence, 
discrimination of ability for duty was not practiced. 
A French professor of chemistry, the recipient of a 
l^obel prize, was in one instance made the guardian 
of a bridge. But in general, be it said, assignments 
were made with discrimination. It is to be added, 
moreover, that the power and worth manifested in one 
department of teaching and research often seemed 
to prepare the worker for service in a department 
apparently quite unlike or unrelated. The method 
of learning and of teaching was proved to be more 
important than the content of instruction. A mind 
well educated is able to turn itself with ease and ef- 
fectiveness unto problems lying in other fields than 
those of its own peculiar cultivation. The higher 
education consists less in having learned than in 
ability to learn. 

Both in the camp and on the campus, college 



College Officers in War Service 95 

officers usually manifested a spirit of cooperation. 
This cooperation belonged, not only to members of 
their own class, but also to the class unacademic. 
Professors are usually individualists. In the war 
professors learned the art of team play, as thor- 
oughly as the football team learns it on the gridiron. 
Professors are usually experts in their own field, 
and in no other. In the war they learned that their 
own scholarly attainments were to be united with the 
equally scholarly attainments of other experts. They 
learned to deal with all sorts and conditions of men : 
to be patient with both presumption and stupidity, to 
be forebearing with ignorance, to work with laziness, 
to be gracious toward selfishness, — in order to get 
the best results out of conditions favorable or un- 
favorable to one's immediate or remote purpose. 

The duties thus assigned were usually done with 
both judgment and enthusiasm. One teacher, a pro- 
fessor in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
wrote : " Am very busy, with nothing but engines, 
gears and cranks and wheels from morning to night. 
It is easily the most interesting work I ever did. 
Ah, but this is the life. I am beginning to realize 
that I never lived before — and I may not live much 
longer. You don't know how it sets a man to think- 
ing, when a heavy T. IST. T. bomb drops near him in 
the night time in the streets of a great city. It does 



96 



Colleges and Universities in the Great War 



not make him afraid ; it simply makes him lose his re- 
spect for mankind. 

" But it is all for Liberty." ^ 

Another teacher having charge of French refugees 
wrote : " But men may come and men may go, the 
stream of ^ Rapatries ' goes on forever, with all its 
joy and pathos. Some 1,500 per day hereafter be- 
ing absorbed into France and cared for tenderly by 
weary, plucky, courageous France, who has not be- 
gun to get to the limit of her resources, in my judg- 
ment, and would fight on for ten years, if necessary, 
paying whatever price is necessary for victory. . . . 
The French people go right on absorbing at the rate 
of 1,000 to 1,500 a day, the lame, the blind, the halt, 
the sick, the young and the old and the insane that 
Germany is sending them, including many other fine 
people, but no able-bodied men and very few able- 
bodied women, except those with small children. 
Have carried eighty-four people so far to-day, one 
hundred yesterday and more the day before." ^ 

In the midst of this outpouring of loyal and of 
royal service on the part of the colleges and of in- 
dividual teachers, were heard occasional notes of 
either rebelliousness or of indifference. Suspicions 

1 Letter from Professor Riley of the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology. 

2 Wilmot V. Metcalf, Fish University News, February, 1918, 
pages 18 and 19. 



College Officers in War Service 97 

of disloyalty on the part of teachers were, though in- 
frequently, held. Such suspicions gave the govern- 
ment reason for watchfulness. In certain instances, 
these suspicions proved to be unfounded. In other 
instances the evidence was sustained. Hugo Mun- 
sterberg, Professor of Psychology in Harvard Uni- 
versity since the year 1892, a man bom in Germany 
and educated in German institutions, at one time a 
professor in the University of Freiburg, was under 
constant surveillance. His death has not removed 
certain evidence of his cooperation with the Kaiser's 
government. The only instance that has come into 
the public notice, of the removal of a college execu- 
tive, was found in the presidency of Baldwin-Wallace, 
a college of OhiO'. After an investigation, made by 
a special committee of Methodist bishops — the col- 
lege itself being of that denomination — the presi- 
dent was removed from office. The purpose of the 
removal was at least two-fold, to serve as a warning 
to academic executives and professors and also as a 
guarantee of the patriotism of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. 

In general, however, it is to be firmly said that 
the officers in the American college who remained at 
their desks and their duties were as loyal, and, some 
of them at least, as useful by address and essay, as 
well as by conferences and conventions, as their 



98 Colleges and Universities in the Oreat War 

brothers who went forth into the field, or who worked 
directly in their laboratories on munition formulas. 
They kept the academic home fires burning. They 
gave wisdom in counsel, strength to the will, and cour- 
age to the heart of the individual and of the com- 
munity. 

The contribution thus made by men and women, 
teachers in American colleges, was as diverse as the 
forces and conditions that constitute warfare or that 
compose the American college. The devotion thus 
given was of the highest quality. It stood at once 
for duty and for honor. Like their younger sons, 
they held not their own lives dear unto them. Some 
did not return to their desks or their books, and 
some of those who did return bear in body and in 
spirit the lasting marks of their inferno. 



VII 

THE SPIRIT OF THE STUDENT SOLDIER 

The spirit of the student soldier who entered the 
service was one of intellectual understanding. He 
appreciated the issues personal, national and inter- 
national, which were wrapped up in his enrollment 
and commitment. To this understanding and ap- 
preciation was added a willingness to do all and to 
be all essential to the securing of the war's ultimate 
purpose. One would hesitate to say that these great 
comprehensions were the property of the student 
only. They belonged to all citizens, yet it would not 
be unjust to intimate that the understanding made 
by him was at least as definite and considerate as that 
belonging to many. Of course the simple element 
of heroic enthusiasm and devotion is an integral 
part of all true and worthy men. Such a deposit 
is a common part of our common humanity. 

In the mind and heart of the collegian was found 
a mighty determination to fight until the proper vic- 
tory was won. The purpose was well put into some 
singing verses by a graduate of Western Reserve 

99 



100 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

University near tlie time of America's entrance. 
Edward Bushnell wrote these lines whicli were sung 
in many army camps : — 

"UNCLE SAM" 

1 
So you've drawn your sword again, Uncle Sam! 
You're lined up with fighting men, Uncle Sam! 

For, when freedom is at stake. 

You will fight for honor's sake; 

And you'll fight till tyrants quake, Uncle Sam. 

2 

We know war is not your game. Uncle Sam. 
'Twas at peace you made your fame, Uncle Sam. 

And 'tis always with regret 

That you make a war-like threat; 

But they've never whipped you yet. Uncle Sam. 

3 

We will sail on all the seas. Uncle Sam, 
Without saying " if " or " please," Uncle Sam. 
We'll not wear the Kaiser's tag, 
And we'll fly no checkered rag. 
For Old Glory is our flag, Uncle Sam. 

4 

Let the Eagle flap his wings. Uncle Sam. 

These are sorry days for kings. Uncle Sam. 
And the Kaiser and his crew 
Will be missing, when they're through 
With the old Red, White and Blue, Uncle Sam. 



The Spirit of the Student Soldier 101 

5 

We are ready now to serve, Uncle Sam. 

We have money, men and nerve, Uncle Sam. 

We will stick through thick and thin, 

Till we show them in Berlin 

That with God we're going to win. Uncle Sam. 

Such verses were expressive of the grip of the will of 
the college man to fight it through whether it took 
all summer or all winter. 

Both before and after enlisting the simple de- 
mocracy of the army was made plain. This democ- 
racy belonged in the first place to the privates in 
the ranks. Of course, a lack of democracy charac- 
terized the relationship between the officers on the 
one hand and the privates on the other; but equality 
and fraternity did distinguish those of similar mili- 
tary condition. Among the men in the ranks, the 
human was the chief note of their song. A British 
mother wrote in the preface to " A Midshipman's 
Log " saying, that among those who are fighting for 
their country and for the triumpb of right and jus- 
tice, there could be no class or distinction. The 
members of the privileged class were privileged only 
in being leaders — first in the field, and foremost at 
the post of danger.i^ 

A son, too, of distinguished American parentage 

1 " From Dartmouth to the Dardanelles — A Midshipman's 
Log" — 'edited by his mother, page viii. 



102 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

bore out of his experience similar testimony. Vic- 
tor Chapman wrote in September of the year 1914 
saying : " The people I am thrown with are, for the 
moment, Polish in majority, for they are a crowd 
which came together from Cambrai. But they are 
of almost all nationalities and all stations and ages 
of life. I am most friendly with a little Spaniard 
from Malaga. He has been a newspaper reporter 
in London and got tired of doing nothing there, so 
he enlisted here. So far as I have seen I am the 
only American (the others having been sent to Eouen 
a day or two before I enlisted), but I have seen a 
couple of negroes. There are about thirty Alsatians, 
a few Russians and a few Belgians, one or two Ger- 
mans, a Turk, and even a Chinaman arrived this 
morning. There are Greeks and Russian Jews, and 
probably many I have not noticed." ^ His experi- 
ence illustrates the remark in the ISTew Testament 
that God " hath made of one blood all nations of men 
for to dwell on all the face of the earth." 

The whole college order was also pervaded by 
great sympathy for the suffering, the sorrowing, the 
afflicted; and not only with those who were thus 
sadly conditioned, but also for all men as men. 
With this sympathy was united a mighty desire for 

1 " Victor Chapman's Letters from France " with Memoir by 
John Jay Chapman, page 45. 



The Spirit of the Student Soldier 103 

power to serve. Deep emotional excitement may 
atrophy, in weak natures, the force of the will. Such 
a cutting of the nerves is not liable, however, to 
occur in the experience of college men ; for they have 
been tempered in the schools not only of learning, 
but also of observation, of suffering, and of re- 
joicing. An American schoolmaster wrote from an 
American hospital in France of his routine : " I 
begin every night at eight and work twelve hours 
without stopping a moment. I wouldn't miss it for 
the world. We've taken everything in the way of 
wounded, mostly Americans, but also French, Moroc- 
cans, Malays, • and all conditions from slightly 
wounded to the pitifully maimed remnants of hu- 
man life, wrecked beyond all hope.. I have been 
stretcher bearer, have helped undress and bathe the 
wounded, taken them to the X-ray room, and to the 
operating table, held their hands while ether was 
administered, and at the bedside, getting them ready 
for the rest camps farther back. In all this labor 
of love, which is real work, I have heard not one 
murmur of complaint, only words of enthusiasm and 
a desire tO' get back into the gamei. People say they 
are ' magnificent,' but we have no word yet coined to 
describe the spirit of our fighting and wounded sol- 
diers. It is beyond analysis and almost divine. It 
makes you want to drop on your knees and thank 



104 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

God for the power he puts into his children to bear 
their suffering with such fortitude and courage. 
One longs for arms of limitless extent to take the 
whole blessed lot of them next to his heart and tell 
them how proud is America and the whole world of 
their valor and strength, and how all of us love 
them and are determined that they shall win. I 
have learned to pray as I never prayed before for 
power to see this glorious work through to the end, 
power to be of the utmost service to our men and 
their brothers whose ideals are ours, and but for 
whose tremendous sacrifice and heroic defense the 
human wolves would have been at our own doors. 
Folks at home do not realize that the war is on, 
but here in a military hospital ! Oh God, it's here 
we get the taste ! I am going every night till I leave 
the front. 

" School teaching isn't in it with this work. To 
kneel before a hero and untie his shoes, and to get a 
smile from a wounded man lying between sheets for 
the first time in seven months; to get a word of 
thanks from one to whom you have given a tin cup 
of black coffee, is a greater reward than all the pay 
that all the combined schools in the United States 
could give. We are all working our very heads and 
feet off. I can't write more now, though I am so 
full of it I am nearly bursting. I must get some 



The Spirit of the Student Soldier 105 

rest for the long night ahead." Such a union of 
sympathy with a power to relieve the wounded and 
to give succor to the dying was the not infrequent 
experience of the best college soldiers. 

The simple joy and exultation of it all seemed to 
belong with a peculiar rapture to the college man. 
One of distinguished name wrote to his sister : " I 
hadn't realized until lately what a wealth of thrill, 
and tense joy, I had been missing in the tame student 
days. Whenever a flare or star shell lights up ISTo 
Man's Land at night, turning every twig and stone 
into crystal, sharply outlined against a jet black 
sky and ground, it gives me a feeling of wonder and 
throbbing excitement that is different from anything 
else. I hope it will not become ordinary too soon." 

Yet, in this exultation of the soldier, the student 
easily habituated himself to things as they come and 
go. He became a worshiper at the altar of the God 
of things as they are. The outer service seemed to 
transform the inner man. He is not what he was. 
The following confession of a Harvard man, pur- 
posely made anonymously, is almost as representative 
as it is impressive : " Until last winter I was, I 
suppose, what most of the world calls a rich young 
man. That is to say, I had enough money to avoid 
worry about the ordinary luxuries of life. A great 
many doors of society were open to me by reason of 



106 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

long-formed family associations. I went to a very 
fashionable boarding-school, and afterwards to a 
large university. 

" My chief interests were aesthetic ones, and my 
college days, aside from the friendships of them, 
were valued accordingly. I studied hard enough to 
keep a keen interest in these things, and what I didn't 
know, I ' bluffed.' Society is gullible. I talked 
about Zuloaga twice before I saw his paintings. 
With beautiful fluency and complete ignorance I dis- 
cussed thci ' Agamemnon ' of Aeschylus, the ' Thoen- 
issae ' of Euripedes, hydraulic machinery, the Shinto 
religion, St. Paul, the Russian government. It 
made no difference; I knew a little, I bluffed su- 
perbly, and I revelled in the joy of ' holding ' dinner 
tables. So you see how it was — everything to look 
forward to, little to regret. Life was good ; friends 
were many. 

" When the war came I was considering literature 
as a profession. I tried for a commission immedi- 
ately, but unfortunately missed it. Influence didn't 
work. So now I'm a ' buck ' private. 

" I sleep in a tent, stand in line in any weather 
for ' chow.' I dress, because my work demands it, 
most of the time in overalls, and I do what I'm told. 
I have emptied garbage cans and cuspidors, chopped 
wood, shovelled coal, dug holes, done clerical work 



The Spirit of the Student Soldier 107 

and carpentering work. I have been yelled at by 
irate ' non-coms ' for being a fool. 

" They were quite right. A fool is one who is 
ignorant, you see. I can tell you things about the 
meals at Agathon's house, when Socrates dined, and 
drank from the wine cooler, but I had no idea until 
quite recently how to do a great many of the jobs 
I've mentioned. I remember reading, by the way, 
F. W. Taylor's ' Principles of Scientific Manage- 
ment.' It tells you among other things, how to 
shovel with a minimum of effort and for a maximum 
of results. But when you are one of three men who 
are getting coal out of a freight-car that must be 
moved in two hours and a half, you forget what he 
said or wonder if he ever shovelled. Of course, I 
drilled awkwardly too. They were quite right — I 
was a fool. 

" The physical hardships of such a life one quickly 
becomes used to. If it is cold, you learn to sleep 
with your clothes on. If there is no chance to bathe, 
why, of course, you don't bathe. If you get wet, you 
curse a bit, and remark to your nearest neighbor that 
you are ' out of luck.' This phrase embodies almost 
the complete philosophy of enlisted men. It's not so 
unsatisfactory; it has the virtue of truth. And if 
you're not fatalistic enough to accept the verity that 
you are, and are going to be, either in or out of 



108 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

luck, the remark may be used perfectly correctly as 
a consolatory, flattering, or challenging comment — 
or simply as a pleasantry. Indeed life is reduced 
to almost a purely physical basis. Obedience is re- 
quired, but intellect sufficient only for obedience. 

" The ethics of the men in the ranks are a fair 
enough sort. They do not allow much meanness; 
they preach generosity and obligingness. But they 
do include, not necessarily of course, blasphemy, foul- 
ness, intoxication. It's up to the gods, the average 
soldier thinks, whether you are what can fairly be 
termed a good man. As long as you do what you're 
told, your morale may be what you please, Calig- 
ulan or Christian. Of course there is little of the 
spiritual in camp. You may have loved Dante's 
' Inferno/ but you read wireless code-books or Cap- 
tain Parker's notes. You realize that Dante lived a 
very long time ago; and that he is dead. You re- 
member arguments you had in college, near some 
hospitable fire, about Plato's idea of the Abstract 
or Thomas Aquinas's of Immortality. Omar's line 
comes back to you — you did ' come out by the same 
door that in you went.' The four brown walls of 
canvas are still around you. The concrete remains. 
It doesn't matter if you would like to go to the little 
French restaurant with so-and-so, and talk about 
' Comus ' or what a shabby way Bacon treated Essex. 



The Spirit of the Student Soldier 109 

' Fall Out.' You proceed to do so, and are armed 
with a shovel, or a bucket or a monkey-wrench." ^ 

This spirit of adjustment is a part of the Ameri- 
can quality, but the American quality is much more. 
It is a quality of exultation and exhilaration. The 
American spirit is the intellectual quality touched 
by enthusiasm. A student who was accepted by the 
Foreign Legion of the French Army, writes to a 
professor in his college : " Your poilu has burst his 
cocoon and stands glittering before the world — an 
Aspirant. He is proud of himself — and more at 
peace than ever before in his life. . . . 

" You ask me to tell you the commonest events of 
my life. I doubt whether that will be possible, for 
I have chosen a 75 attacking battery, but I shall keep 
a moment-to-moment journal for you and for others 
to whom I am not afraid to reveal myself. If I get 
through safely we'll laugh over it — and if I pass 
out, it will be sent to you. 

" Before this reaches you I shall be at the front. 
I regret that it will not be with my own. . . . They 
are wonderful, and Europe is breathing a new air be- 
cause of them. They have the vision — and the 
dreams of old men are coming true. I wish I could 
tell you the great pride and faith and elation the 

1 Notes of a "Buck" Private — Harvard Alumni Bulletin, 
14th Feb., 1918. 



110 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

recognition of their spirit gives us. To be an Ameri- 
can is to-day the proudest thing in the world. But 
even when one is not fighting as one of them — even 
though he wears another color, he is fighting with 
the American spirit and the American dream. Do 
you wonder that I am perfectly at peace with my- 
self? 

" It is with such emotions that I go to the front. 
Think of me as having believed something passion- 
ately enough not to have accepted rejections, as hav- 
ing found a place for myself when it was refused 
me time and again, as going into the fire with head 
up and laughing lips because I am an officer of 
France and an American. And if I'm killed don't 
call me ' poor fellow.' I shall deserve better than 
that." 1 

Such enthusiasm is representative, interpretative, 
and contagious. It might give the impression of 
being transient like the white crest of the break- 
ing wave, but it was really more sustaining and 
proved to be more permanent than seemed possible. 
The student soldier took the long look and also did 
the nearest duty. A l^orth Carolina student wrote 
to the president of his university, Dr. Graham, a 
beloved president who died recently, saying : " I 

1 Letter from an officer of France and an American to Pro- 
fessor Charles T. Copeland, Harvard University. 



The Spirit of the Student Soldier 111 

am about to leave for France, aware what going 
there means, and glad to go. Before I go I want 
to send my love to you. and Carolina, because you 
two both send me and at the same time make me 
hate to go, because I cherish you with the same love 
I bear my parents. I am not a single-purposed man ; 
if I have one dominant desire I don't recognize it. 
But the resultant of all my desires to live and to 
serve is a purpose to fit myself to come back and 
serve through Carolina. This purpose I have, of 
course, subordinated to what the army may require 
of me until peace is won. But I am fighting to stop 
Germany, and not for the joy of fighting. I hate 
war and its whole stupid machinery as much as I 
love its opposite — the free creative life of Carolina. 
I don't intend to run from the fact that war is wrong 
any more than I intend to run from war itself be- 
cause it is painful. 

" Therefore, while I am glad to serve in this war, 
I still maintain that peace is right and that it must 
be developed by training and organizing man for 
peace even better than he is now trained and organ- 
ized for war." 

The spirit of the American student soldier was 
quite akin to the spirit of the men of Oxford and 
other British universities, of the University of Paris, 
and of the provincial universities of France. All 



112 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

were touched by the same patriotic enthusiasms, by 
the same sense of romance and of freedom. These 
sentiments were, be it confessed, like unto the senti- 
ments of the German university students in their 
love of " Patherland." But how remote were these 
enthusiasms from the Germanic in their sense of 
freedom ! For the Anglo-Saxon has been trained in 
a school of personal honor and of truth-telling. The 
English and the Americans have been taught to hate 
spying and lying and to despise the spy and the liar. 
The English and Americans have been trained to 
play games and to take part in sport, not simply as 
hygienic conditions, but for and of manliness. They 
have been educated in the atmosphere of freedom; 
and the German student has been trained in the 
prison house of unquestioning obedience to the state. 
It was a great spirit which dwelt in the heart of 
the soldier student and which prompted him to 
noblest action. It was a spirit of intellectual under- 
standing and of emotional appreciation of the issues 
of the war. It was also a spirit of willingness to 
make the ultimate sacrifice to win its victory, '^o 
determination was mightier than to stay in the serv- 
ice until barbarism was put down and civilization 
again enthroned. In this determination was found 
the spirit of democracy strong and regnant, a democ- 
racy not American only, but also human. In this 



The Spirit of the Student Soldier 113 

sense of equality and of liberty was found not only a 
tender sympatky with the suffering and sorrowing, 
but also a sympathy which did not weaken the will 
for hardest service. In this sympathy lay also a 
peculiar rapture, an exultation in the opportunity 
to serve ; and with this rapture went along a capacity 
for transformation of the lower manhood into the 
higher, a transformation characteristic of the best 
natures. The enthusiasm also, although not always 
keeping itself at white heat, seems to have been con- 
sistent with a prophetic outlook into humanity's fu- 
ture. The college man was in the ranks, as in the 
class-room, primarily the man of thought and of 
thoughtfulness. Putting on the uniform, he did not 
divest himself of his intellectual habit. 

In this spirit of exultation, both emotional and 
intellectual, the student soldier lent himself to the 
primary element, military discipline. He gave him- 
self to this process with more ease than the untrained 
man of his adolescent years. For, the college course 
itself was a process more disciplinary than the process 
of the home. Discipline represents not only obedi- 
ence, but also the sinking of one's own individuality 
into a mass of individualities. ISTot always with ease, 
but with less of rebellion than usually exists, he sub- 
mitted to the rules and regulations of the camp by 
day and by night. !N^ot only to obedience as a first 



114 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

duty, but also to cleanliness, to honesty, to sobriety, 
to self-respect and other of the principal elements of 
discipline, he found himself in not unhappy accord. 
Of course, the soldier students, in many instances, 
became officers. As officers, they bore themselves 
as gentlemen. War is a brutalizer. The processes 
preparatory for and following the battle are bru- 
talizing. Officers are inclined to be coarse in lan- 
guage, severe in their manners, abrupt and harsh in 
general relationships to the private. Such methods 
and manners were, on the whole, foreign to the stu- 
dent soldier. He had a sense of altruism above men 
unschooled. This sense, of course, he exercised with- 
out the peril of softness or of favoritism. He could 
be at once gracious and commanding, kind and se- 
vere, sympathetic and disciplinary. He was not in- 
clined to create that most common element of the 
army, the element of fear. For fear as an inspiring 
force, he used the proper substitutes of pride in one's 
regiment or one's battalion, idealism, and enthusiasm 
for the cause. Comradeship, too, he cultivated, and, 
that element of the soldier in every man, hero-wor- 
ship, he inspired, not so much for himself, of course, 
as for the highest commanders. 



VIII 

THE SCIENCES AND THE SCIENTISTS 

The war was a war waged by scientists and 
through the sciences. The principles of the sci- 
ences were its principles. The methods of the sci- 
ences were its methods. The conditions attending 
research and applications of the results of research 
were its conditions. The two chief new forms of 
attack, the submarine and the airplane, had their 
origin in the science of physics, and the use of these 
machines was determined by the laws of physics. 
Every gun of a battery was loaded with compounds 
made according to the laws of chemistry, and it was 
aimed and discharged in accordance with the laws 
of trigonometry. The making of every trench and 
the explosion of every mine was settled by the laws 
of geology and of other sciences. The manufacture 
of every gas followed the principles of chemical ac- 
tion and reaction, and the methods of protection 
against the perils of gas were determined by chem- 
ical and physical investigations. Even the healing 
of the wounds on the arm, back, and chest was meas- 
ured, and a prognosis made, to a certain degree by 

115 



116 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

the laws of mathematics., Such a fundamental use 
of scientific principles belonged quite as much to 
Germany as to the United States and the Allies. In 
fact, in certain relations, as in the use of gas, Ger- 
many anticipated her enemies. She mobilized her 
professors of chemistry and of physics in her mili- 
tary service much earlier than did the Allies, as 
she mobilized her troops ahead of her foes. But the 
scientists of Great Britain, France, and the United 
States were, when the summons came, no less prompt, 
no less efficient, and no less enthusiastic, than the 
professors of Berlin and Leipsic. For the very- 
first time, the chemists, the physicists, the mathema- 
ticians, the geologists were given an opportunity of 
devoting all their technical skill and scientific re- 
sources to the service of their nation and humanity. 
They sprang as one strong man to meet the demand 
and to embrace the opportunity. 

The scientists who thus threw their personalities, 
their services and their laboratories into the war, 
were usually teachers in American colleges and uni- 
versities. Members of the research staff in industrial 
plants were no less eager in their offers, no less pa- 
triotic in their self-sacrificing contributions, and their 
number was large. But directly as well as indi- 
rectly the college teachers formed the gTeat bulk of 
the scientific army, who in permanent laboratories or 



The Sciences and the Scientists 117 

extemporized plants worked for their government. 

In the work of the scientists were found two funda- 
mental and comprehensive elements : — first, the ele- 
ment of the formation of groups of scholars for re- 
search, and, second, the cooperation of these groups. 
Perhaps the most important of all the research groups 
was that which was composed of scholars like Merritt 
of Cornell, Mason of Wisconsin, Wilson of Rice In- 
stitute, Pierce and Bridgman of Harvard, Bumstead, 
^Nichols and Zeleny of Yale, and Michelson of Chi- 
cago.^ These outstanding professors were asked to 
find devices for avoiding many dangers, of which 
the submarine peril was the most serious. This 
service, — the cost of which amounted to more than 
one million dollars — had so proved its value that 
after a few months it was taken over by the ISTavy 
Department. 

This group and similar groups associated them- 
selves with other bodies engaged also in scientific 
exploration and discovery. The Science and Re- 
search Division and the Signal Corps, the Bureau of 
Aircraft Production, the Meteorological Section of 
the Science and Research Division, are names which, 
important in themselves, represent the cooperation 
of highly trained specialists, formed largely of col- 

1 The New Opportunity in Science, Professor E. A. Millikan, 
published in Science, No. 1291, page 288. 



118 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

lege men, who worked together uiito great results. 

Such groups and such cooperation were not, by any 
manner of means, confined to the United States. 
The French, English, and Italian scientists were in 
constant cooperation, both in person, by post and by 
cable, over devices which proved to be of the highest 
worth. 

Of all the sciences, however, chemistry was in 
this war the first well equipped scientific force in 
the field. It was an epoch-making day in the history 
of the war and in the history of applied chemistry, 
when the Chemical Service Section was formed as 
a unit of the National Army. The foundation was 
laid in Washington, soon after the formal entrance 
of the United States, at a conference of members of 
the General Staff, Medical Corps and War College, 
with ]^avy and civilian chemists. Its chief was 
Lieutenant Colonel W. H. Walker of the Massachu- 
setts Institute of Technology. It chose for its colors, 
the colors of the American Chemical Society, — co- 
balt blue and gold, and it adopted for its insignia the 
traditional alembic of alchemy joined with the ben- 
zene ring. 

Thus organized the chemists served in many rela- 
tions. They became members of the General Staff 
and were in charge of all forms of the gas warfare, 
which included research, manufacturing and testing. 



The Sciences and the Scientists 119 

Tkey were made members of the Ordnance Depart- 
ment. In this relationship they were concerned with 
the solving of problems touching explosives from the 
moment of the beginning of making to the moment of 
testing and of discharge. This service was rendered 
at many points from the Atlantic coast to the Mis- 
sissippi. Cooperation was had with laboratories of 
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, of the 
University of Michigan and of other institutions. 
The chemists also had a share in the work of the 
office of the surgeon general. Questions of food, of 
nutrition and of sanitation were committed to them. 
At the Harriman Laboratory, the spoiling of meat was 
a special problem considered. At the University of 
Rochester, the effect of temperature on desiccated 
vegetables was made a particular question. 

These services were rendered to the Army on the 
land. The service rendered through chemists to 
the ISTavy were also as significant, even if the num- 
ber engaged was smaller. In the Ordnance Bureau 
of the ]^avy about one hundred chemists were en- 
rolled. In the War Trade Board, the Shipping 
Board, the Food Administration Board, the Tariff 
Commission, were also found chemists giving the 
unique service which each department demanded. 

In hundreds of chemical laboratories on the cam- 
pus of as many colleges, professors were enrolled un- 



120 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

der govemment direction, pursuing researches which 
might add to the power of the government as a fight- 
ing machine. These researches covered in an inci- 
dental way many of the problems which were com- 
prehensively examined in the formal laboratories of 
the government. While professors were pursuing 
their work in a more or less regular way as members 
of the teaching staff, they were also practically en- 
rolled as soldiers of the ^National Army. 

It is ever to be remembered that the thousands of 
men engaged formally and informally in the chem- 
ical branch of the war, were originally trained in the 
colleges and that many of them were permanent 
members of faculties. They represented no small 
share of the contribution made to the war by the 
higher education. 

A similar interpretation belongs to the yet broader 
field of physics. In this field physicists, teachers in 
American colleges, bore an equally important part. 
In the multitude of instances one selects representa- 
tive examples. One conspicuous example is found 
in the airplane. An American scholar and teacher 
has personally said : 

" At the outbreak of the war the airplane was a toy op- 
erated by an engine which was none too reliable and which 
could develop only 80 horse-power; to-day we have an air- 
plane which is a piece of engineering driven by one or 



The Sciences and the Scientists 121 

more engines each capable of developing 400 horse-power; 
and this modern wonder is capable of carrying 50 passen- 
gers while another now building will carry 100. During 
the war the airplanes flew from London to Constantinople 
and back, on bombing raids, making non-stop flights of 
over 1,000 miles ; during the year 1918, 16,000 Liberty en- 
gines were produced : a special cotton fabric and a thin 
sheet steel were developed to take the place of the linen 
formerly used on the wings; speeds up to 140 miles per 
hour have been recorded and the unheard of height of 
29,000 feet reached which latter achievement, by the way, 
opens up new possibilities in the study of meteorology. 
The monthly fatality average has been one fatality for 
each 3,200 hours flown. 

" Much progress has been made with the dirigible type of 
airship thanks to the discovery of a cheap non-inflammable 
gas as a substitute for the dangerous hydrogen. This gas, 
helium, first discovered on the sun, was produced before 
the war at a cost of $1,500-$1,600 per cubic foot ; it is now 
found in such large quantities in the natural gas of some 
of the southwestern states that the cost of production per 
cubic foot is about $100; if this supply continues to hold 
out there is a great future for the airship. 

" It goes without saying that the theory of aviation has 
been placed upon a much better foundation because of the 
thousands of experiments it has been possible to make; 
efforts at stabilizing are meeting with success and consid- 
erable improvement in the various instruments used has 
been made." 

Another American physicist, Professor Joseph S. 
Ames of Johns Hopkins University, writing before 
the signing of the armistice, of two great additions 
to the weapons of attack said : 



122 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

" There are two main probleras in connection with the 
submarine, first, to locate it, second to destroy it. Meth- 
ods of destruction are at hand in the shape of depth 
bombs ; but methods of detection so far have not been emi- 
nently successful. From an airplane one can see through 
the water only to a limited depth, never more than twenty 
feet, and so the main reason why the sea-planes have been 
so successful in destroying submarines is not due to the 
fact that the observer in the airplane discovers his prey, 
but is that his machine has such great speed, three times 
that of a destroyer, that when news is flashed that a vessel 
is being attacked by a submarine it can often reach the 
spot in time to drop its bomb effectively. The detection 
of the presence of a submarine is a definite physical prob- 
lem ; and it is not an exaggeration to say that at least one- 
fourth of the physicists of note in England, France and 
this country have been engaged in the attempt to solve 
it. What lines of attack upon it are open? Not many. 
The submarine in motion emits certain sounds; can they 
be heard ? It is a solid body ; can one obtain an echo from 
it? It is made of iron; can this fact help through some 
magnetic action? These are the obvious lines of ap- 
proach, but one should not hastily conclude that there 
are not others. Without stating, and I may not, how far 
successful these efforts of the physicists have been, I may 
note that the method which is now being tested by our 
Navy is one elaborated by a distinguished professor of 
mathematical physics." ^ 

There were, moreover, certain special adaptations 

or applications of physics which proved to be of great 

1 Annual address before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, Uni- 
versity of Virginia, 1918, Science, 25th Oct., 1918. 



The Sciences and the Scientists 123 

worth. The whole art of surveying was changed by 
the war. An operator with a camera in an airplane 
can, it was proved, in less than a minute make a 
complete map of a section of country, even at as great 
a height as four miles. In meteorology, it was 
proved that balloons can be made to have a speed of 
even a hundred miles an hour and fly a distance of 
more than a thousand miles. The Research Division 
of the Meteorologists proved that the upper regions 
of the air can be measured and mapped out, — facts 
that are of the utmost value to the aviator. 

Physicists, too, accomplished great results in the 
art of signalling. In this complex and unique art 
special use was made of the infra-red and the ultra- 
violet rays, which are invisible. Great improve- 
ments were also made in the wireless telegraph and 
the wireless telephone. The sound waves from the 
guns of the enemy were used to locate their position, 
within one per cent, of the true place. Physicists 
were also concerned with the development of armor 
plate, with the art of camouflage, with improvements 
in photography, and with the discovery and applica- 
tion of the German methods for the production of 
dye stuffs, and in the making of optical glass. 

The physicists who thus contributed to the winning 
of the war were usually members of the teaching 



124 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

staffs of American colleges, and, like the cliemists, 
they represented the personal contribution which the 
cause of higher learning offered. 

Less superficially evident, but no less fundamen- 
tally useful, than the services of the mathematician, 
of the chemist and of the physicist was the service 
of the geologist and the geographer. Their work 
comprised several groups of activities. Such ac- 
tivities were of course given by British and French 
scholars as well as by American. They were ad- 
visers of the Military Staff of the British armies in 
Palestine, at Gallipoli and in Greece. The German 
army early in the war installed geologists in the army 
organization. Geologists served as consultants on 
the topographic conditions touching strategy. They 
were made explorers for water. To find this supply 
became as hard and as important a problem in densely 
peopled Flanders as it was in Palestine and Syria. 
They offered counsel regarding proper conditions for 
excavations and mining operations, kept close watch 
of underground waters (always liable to rise or 
fall), a constant problem, not only in wet weather 
but also in drouth. It has been said that it was the 
skill of the geologists who planned the location of 
fifty or more mines placed in the Messines Ridge, 
which resulted in their successful explosion. They 
were consultants for supplies of material for roads, 



The Sciences and the Scientists 125 

rogarding foundations for positions for the artillery 
and regarding proper conditions of camp sanitation. 

The United States Geological Survey in coopera- 
tion with the War Industries Board, Bureau of 
Mines, Shipping Board, Bureau of Standards and 
other organizations gave invaluable aid in promot- 
ing research and advancing various activities, both 
large and of detail. The finding of manganese ore, 
the importation of which had ceased, and of sulphuric 
supplies, high grade clay for special purposes, chro- 
mite, potassium, pyrite for making sulphuric acid, 
represented this important and diverse service. 

Geologists and geographers were also employed in 
many training camps in making and reading maps, 
and in teaching students in these arts. In the liter- 
ary field reports on the topography and geology of 
each cantonment were made, not only for immediate 
information, but also for the purpose of training 
officers to secure similar knowledge for the future 
location of camps. The literary service of the geogra- 
phers, physiographers and cartographers was of 
such great value that at least a quartet of them were 
made members of the Paris Peace Council.^ 

As in the case of other scientists, the credit for 

1 Professor J. E. Hyde, of Western Keserve University, has 
contributed many facts regarding the service of geologists and 
geographers. 



126 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

tlie contribution offered by geologists was ultimately 
due to the colleges. The colleges trained these men 
for their great service and in the colleges not a few 
of them were permanent teachers. 

Of all the offerings made by the American uni- 
versities to the great cause, the contributions of the 
medical schools were, if not more useful, at least more 
impressive. 

The service, of course, had its foundation in the 
professional training given for decades previous to 
1917, as well as in the training of the years cov- 
ering the war itself. The service rendered was sup- 
ported by the great improvement of the medical 
schools in the decade preceding the outbreak of the 
war. This improvement was greater than had oc- 
curred in the preceding half century. Regarding the 
medical service of the war and in the education lying 
behind this service, a competent interpreter has 
written : — 

" The most important factor in the efficiency of a 
medical school is the maintenance of an efficient per- 
sonnel in the teaching staff. Hence, in addition to 
oversight of distribution of medical practitioners to 
care for the health of the civilian population, and the 
securing of medical officers to care for the sick and 
wounded of the army, the surgeon general must 
maintain effective teaching staffs in all those medical 



The Sciences and the Scientists 12Y 

scliools which were serving as training schools for 
the future medical officers. 

" However it was necessary to secure the service in 
the army of every competent and physically fit med- 
ical man who could be spared from the care of the 
civilian population and from the training of students. 
The army had need of highly trained experts in many 
fields of medicine, especially in hospital and camp 
laboratories and in certain of the medical and surgi- 
cal specialties. It was well known before the war, 
and was more apparent after the war began, that 
on the whole the best men in their various lines were 
on the teaching staffs of some medical school. This 
was true because the medical school in each com- 
munity seeks the best men of that community and 
also because medical men who are teaching are stimu- 
lated to greater effort to become more expert, both by 
study and by investigation, than are the men in 
practice who are deprived of the stimulus of being 
associated with students and a teaching institution. 

" It soon became apparent that if the army were 
permitted to take all the experts it desired, then the 
schools would be stripped of a large part of their 
best teachers, and as a result the members of the 
Medical Enlisted Reserve Corps who were left in the 
schools for the sole purpose of being adequately 
trained for future service in the army would get an 



128 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

inefficient training because of the lack of experi- 
enced good teachers. 

" Hence the War Department diminished its early 
efforts to bring into the army men who were teach- 
ers in medical schools. This did not solve the prob- 
lem, for it was soon apparent that the best teachers 
were extremely patriotic and desired to serve their 
country and further, that they believed they should 
go into the army rather than remain as teachers in 
the medical schools. The psychology of the situa- 
tion was evident, especially when emphasized by the 
public attitude toward able-bodied men who were not 
in uniform. Some plan was needed whereby the 
teaching staffs of the medical schools should not be 
impaired to such extent that there would be a result- 
ing deterioration in the training of the students." ^ 

As a result the government allowed each medical 
school to retain the teachers who were essential to 
the carrying on of the school. Such men were re- 
garded as serving their nation quite as effectively as 
if they had gone to a hospital in France. The con- 
tribution of the medical schools, through their gradu- 
ates, teachers, and students, made to the winning of 
the war, represented no less than 30,000, physicians 
and surgeons. Of this great number, about one- 

1 Personal letter from Professor Frederick C. Waite, of 
Western Reserve University Medical School. 



The Sciences mid the Scientists 129 

half graduated within the decade preceding their en- 
trance, about 10,000 between the years 1899-1908, 
and 5,000 before the year 1899. Essentially they 
were all young men. The contribution which the 
medical schools thus made was of course of the ut- 
most worth. In numbers the thirty thousand enroll- 
ments represented slightly more than one-fifth of all 
the practicing physicians.-^ 

In the development of the American medical serv- 
ice no less than six university base hospital units 
were established in France. In fact, as early as 
December 28th, 1914, a body of surgeons, nurses, 
and anesthetists from Western Reserve University 
and its allied Lakeside Hospital sailed for France to 
serve with the Allied forces, and, after the declara- 
tion of war in 19 lY, it was a similar body which 
was ordered into similar service. Later, King 
George, at Buckingham Palace, addressing this unit, 
said, " We greet you as the first detachment of the 
American Army which has landed on our shores since 
your great Republic resolved to join in the world- 
struggle for the ideals of civilization. We deeply 
appreciate this prompt and generous response to our 
needs. It is characteristic of the humanity and 
chivalry which has ever been evinced by the Ameri- 

1 For the U. S., the whole was 147,812, and for the Depen- 
dencies, 1,319. 



130 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

can nation that the first assistance rendered to the 
Allies is in connection with the profession of heal- 
ing and the work of mercj." 

The officers of these various university units gave 
most efficient service at the front, as well as behind 
the lines. A single one of these university hospital 
units cared for more than sixty-eight thousand sick 
and wounded men. IsTot only was such personal, 
direct care given, but also scientific research groups 
were formed among the surgeons and physicians and 
their associates. The causes and the prevention of 
the diverse diseases and sicknesses to which the sol- 
diers were subjected received careful attention. 
Every wounded man became a specific problem. The 
comparative value of different methods of treatment 
was the object of constant inquiry. The study of 
shock and exhaustion occupied no small share of the 
attention of the research staff. The shielding of the 
ear against the effect of explosives, the defensive use 
of gasses, the sterilization of water in all the camps, 
the saving of soldiers from the constant peril of 
typhoid fever — a peril which was specially virulent 
for the first men of the war — are examples of the 
diverse service given by medical professors. 

In every branch of the service, the element of in- 
dustrial fatigue played an important part. The 
scarcity of labor of every sort made it of extreme im- 



The Sciences and the Scientists 131 

portance that each laborer be permanently kept at his 
highest efficiency. The physiologist was therefore 
constantly called upon to quicken those who were un- 
derworking and to restrain those who were guilty of 
overwork. 

" It would appear," says Doctor George W. Crile, 
to whom I am indebted for certain of these inter- 
pretations, " that the service of the medical depart- 
ments of our universities during the great war would 
justify a permanent organization whereby the mem- 
bers of our university medical schools would become 
a permanent part of our national defense. Our 
eighty university schools thus organized would cover 
the hospital needs of an army of approximately 
3,200,000. By means of such an organization it 
would be possible for the Surgeon General to es- 
tablish his military point of view in the training of 
all worthy medical men. By such a collective effort 
an American medical force could be established 
ready for practical application in time of national 
need." 

And yet the experiences of the medical schools in 
the war time gave ground for the interpretation that 
there are serious deficiencies in these schools, and 
consequently in their graduates. The war proved 
that the schools had not educated their students in 
what is known as physical diagnosis, and also the 



132 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

war proved that there is a great ignorance of hygiene 
and of the fundamental conditions of public health. 
It was also shown that no small share of the physi- 
cians, who claimed to be specialists, had not received 
adequate training. But, despite these facts, the con- 
tribution made was a necessary part of the great ef- 
fort for winning the war. 

The service of the medical schools was by no means 
confined to the traditional conditions of caring for 
the sick and the wounded and of the promotion of 
good hygienic forces in the battle area. The medical 
schools, directly or indirectly, provided men and 
equipment for important commissions to devastated 
lands. These commissions were concerned with 
Servia, Russia, with the Balkan Provinces, including 
Roumania, and with the countries of the near East. 
They bore offerings beneficent, as well as unique, of- 
ferings which in their origin were made by the 
schools of medicine and their affiliated hospitals. 
The needs which these commissions filled were of 
inexpressible value. 

A member of the delegation, which went to Rou- 
mania in the year of 191 Y, Doctor Roger G. Perkins 
of "Western Reserve University, has indicated the 
seriousness of the condition in Roumania. He says : 

" Everything tangible in the way of supplies had 
been commandeered for military purposes, all physi- 



The Sciences and the Scientists 133 

cians up to the age of sixty-five had been mobilized, 
and most of the assistants in the civil hospitals had 
been taken into war service. As a result of this 
one-sided arrangement, fairly active measures were 
being taken among the troops in the way of delousing, 
isolation of patients, and so forth, so that the actual 
incidence in the war zone was low. Among the civil 
population, however, there was practically nothing 
being done except in the larger centers, and these 
were so frightfully overcrowded that even the best 
of intentions were unable to accomplish much. The 
city of Jassy, for instance, with a normal population 
of sixty thousand, was housing nearly three hundred 
thousand, and other towns were crowded in similar 
proportion. There were insufficient food and insuf- 
ficient clothing and insufficient hospital supplies and 
drugs, and when anything was at hand, the best of it 
went to the military. In the rural districts which 
were most removed from the fighting lines, things 
were comparatively normal, though the insufficiency 
of food and clothing was evident. ITearer the fight- 
ing lines, however, on account partly of the great 
difficulties of transportation, the conditions were very 
serious. In addition to the armies of defense, there 
was a large number of refugees from the occupied 
districts and also a number of persons evacuated 
from homes on the Allied side which were under 



134 Colleges and Universities in the Oreat War 

German fire. For the care of these people, there was 
practically no provision whatever, and, although the 
season was still early and the weather warm enough 
to prevent the crowding together, which occurs al- 
ways in the winter periods, cases of typhus were be- 
ing noted sporadically all over the country. It was 
clear that, with the onset of colder weather and with- 
out active measures, there was a chance for a repeti- 
tion of the previous epidemic in which 100,000 were 
said to have died." 

To meet such conditions, the commission adopted 
the following methods : 

" First, to make all military baths, hospitals, and 
disinfectors available for civil as well as military 
population; second, to detach from military service 
a sufficient number of physicians with previous ex- 
perience in civil work to have a special care of the 
civil population of the country; third, that as far as 
the epidemic went, a man should be appointed with 
proper experience who should be in general control of 
the entire work and have accessibility to all supplies 
whether civil or military." 

The methods adopted were proved, after more 
than a year of their application, to have been ef- 
fective. For, despite difficulties and hindrances and 
constant appeals, it was made evident that thousands 



The Sciences and the Scientists 135 

were saved from typhus infections and that the na- 
tion was spared a heavy toll of death. 

Lamentable as was the condition of Eoumania, the 
condition of Servia was still more pitiable. To 
Servia, near the close of the war, a commission was 
sent, composed of professors in medical schools who, 
through one of their number, made the following 
report : 

" There never had been enough doctors in the 
country, a large number of these had been killed dur- 
ing the war, and in 1919 there were so few that 
many parts of the country had one physician to 
75,000 or more persons. With the difficulties of 
transportation made much worse by the destruction 
of roads and bridges during the war, this meant that 
the greater part of Servia was totally without med- 
ical service of any sort. 

" It was accordingly arranged to establish small 
groups of doctors and nurses, as far as possible in 
association with relief stations, and to have these 
units care for emergency medical work with the dis- 
tinct understanding that they should give, as far as 
possible, primary education in public health matters. 
ISTo elaborate program was possible on account of 
the lack of education and the impossibility of any 
intensive propaganda. On this basis, some twenty- 



136 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

five stations were establislied throughout Servia 
manned with American personnel. They were 
everywhere most heartily welcomed, and every fa- 
cility which the war-ridden country could furnish 
them was put at their disposal. To have left the 
country and abandoned the work at the end of June, 
1919, as was originally planned, would have been a 
serious error for the Eed Cross and a misfortune 
for the people. After consulting with the Servian 
authorities and with the heads of the Balkan Com- 
mission and the Commission for Europe, the Red 
Cross decided to retain about half of these stations 
for a period of at least a year, under American per- 
sonnel. This action was necessary because the Serv- 
ians actually lacked physicians and obviously could 
not obtain more without leaving several years for 
their instruction, unless they had assistance from out- 
side. In Roumania and Greece, on the other hand, 
the actual possible supply of medical men was ade- 
quate if properly distributed. The pathetic appre- 
ciation of our efforts in the medical line and the 
friendly feeling towards America in the villages to 
which our work was accessible, constituted probably 
the greatest potential influence for good of any of 
the relations between the Red Cross and the Balkan 
people." 

In the service of science in prosecuting and win- 



The Sciences and the Scientists 137 

ning the war, the function of agriculture was con- 
stant and vital. In this field the work done through 
the so-called " Land Grant Colleges " established by 
the Morrill Act of 1862 was of tremendous signifi- 
cance. This pregnant Act together with subsequent 
legislation of the ISTational Congress had caused a 
vast development in agriculture throughout the West. 
Of the conditions the Secretary of Agriculture, David 
Y. Houston, wrote : 

'' The Land-^ant Colleges and experiment stations are 
without parallel. They are 67 in number, have a total 
valuation of endowment, plant, and equipment of $195,- 
000,000 ; and income of more than $45,000,000, with 5,900 
teachers; a resident student body of over 75,000, and a 
vast number receiving extension instruction. Their great 
ally, the Department of Agriculture, is unquestionably the 
greatest practical and scieT>tific agricultural organization 
in the world. It has a staff of more than 20,000 people, 
many of them highly trained experts, and a budget of 
approximately $65,000,000." ^ 

And further Dr. Houston said : — 

" The department and its great allies, the Land-grant 
Colleges, immediately proceeded to redirect their activities 
and to put forth all their energies in the most promising 
directions. In a conference of the agricultural leaders of 
the nation in St. Louis, called just before the United 
States entered the war, a program for further organiza- 
tion, legislation and action with reference to production, 

1 Science, September 13, 1918, page 260. 



138 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

conservation and marketing was drawn up, the principle 
features of which have been enacted into law without sub- 
stantial change or have been put into effect. This prompt 
and effective handling of the situation was made possible 
by reason of the fact that the American people, genera- 
tions before, had wisely laid the foundations of many agri- 
cultural institutions and had with increasing liberality 
supported their agricultural agencies." ^ 

The scientific contributions therefore, made by 
Great Britain, France and the United States for the 
winning of the war were as broad, diverse, and fun- 
damental as the cause of science itself. The pro- 
fessors in academic faculties became officers of the 
l^ational Army. The equipment in chemistry, geol- 
ogy, physics and other sciences were, so far as neces- 
sary, transferred to the government. The coopera- 
tion of teachers of these sciences was marked. Their 
co-working in making airplanes and in methods of 
signalling was peculiarly significant. ISTew labora- 
tories were built and manned by college teachers. 
Researches in manifold fields were instituted. Sci- 
ence became, in a word, mobilized in the service of 
democracy and of humanity. The part that science 
played in former wars had been slight. The place 
that science may fill in future wars is unknown. 
It is probable that through biology and bacteriology 
a greater function will be performed, but the place 

ilbid., page 261. 



The Sciences and the Scientists 139 

of science in at least five of its great divisions in the 
great war is secure. Its contributions stand forth 
fostered and nourished by the college as of unique 
significance and imperishable value. 



IX 



THE; WOMEN S COLLEGES 



Florence Nightingale remains as the type of the 
war-time nurse. But a broader and more important 
form of women's service this war brought forth 
than the " Lady with the Lamp " could ever picture. 
The American college for women represented and 
embodied this service. 

The number of colleges open to women of the three 
ordinary types, co-educational, co-ordinate, separate, 
is about five hundred. The co-educational and the 
coordinate colleges made first-rate contributions, but 
the colleges for women alone, by reason of their more 
individual organization, gave a service yet more dis- 
tinctive. Throughout the far-flung crisis, the gradu- 
ates, the officers and the students of these colleges 
rendered several types of service. 

Be it at once said that the colleges for women, like 
the colleges for men, directly on the outbreak of the 
war, put themselves on a war basis. They respected 
food regulations, they observed meatless and wheat- 
less days, they established economies of many sorts. 

140 



The Women's Colleges 141 

One college saved coal by having no heat during 
October of the year 1918. Students abolished their 
parties, like Junior " Proms.," Class Days and Class 
Plays. " ISTo frills and frippery " was a motto 
adopted at Vassar. 

The colleges themselves formally offered courses 
of instruction designed to educate and to train women 
for special war-time activities. Some provided 
courses in agriculture and horticulture. The at- 
tendance of women at the ordinary schools of agri- 
culture increased. Several colleges offered courses 
in occupational therapy designed to train students 
to become teachers of wounded soldiers in various 
handicrafts. Applied psychology, chemistry, wire- 
less telegraphy, map-making and map-reading, home 
economics, drafting, typewriting, Prench with em- 
phasis on such conversation as might be necessary in 
canteens, the mechanism of the motor car, first aid, 
surgical dressings, home nursing, war cookery: all 
of these and many more courses represented the war- 
time instruction. Students felt themselves impelled 
toward such training; and the college officers with 
much enthusiasm, threw themselves into the giving 
of such instruction. The value of such courses was 
both psychological and practical. 

The colleges also gave themselves to what may be 
called the military avocations of academic life. 



142 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

Chief among them were found the activities of the 
Ked Cross. Most diverse were the services thus 
rendered by both younger and older gTaduates and by 
students. They all gave themselves to the executive 
work of the Ked Cross. They became teachers in 
the JSTavy Department and censors in the post-office, 
"^ publicity workers in the Women's Council of JSTa- 
tional Defense, and psychological examiners of can- 
didates in the aviation service. They did welfare 
work in factories. They served at home and abroad 
as telephone operators and superintendents. Indi- 
vidual colleges offered individual services. 

Reed College, Oregon, formed a military organiza- 
tion for knitting, which was divided into thirteen 
companies. Vassar's students provided more than 
25,000 pieces of work done for soldiers. The 
" Sopho-Militia," at Randolph-Macon, helped to fur- 
nish a hostess house at Camp Lee. The agricultural 
unit of Vassar and of other colleges helped to over- 
come the shortage of farm labor in the spring of 
1918. The Patriotic League of one college sent out 
six thousand pieces of mail addressed to soldiers. 
Financial campaigns, like Liberty Bonds and friend- 
ship funds, were carried forward; and in one col- 
lege, the Western Reserve College for Women, the 
amount secured in one Liberty Loan through stu- 
dents was more than one-half million dollars. The 



The Women's Colleges 143 

faculty and students of Vassar College raised 
$182,000 for war service. Many nurses of hundreds 
of Young Women's Christian Associations in the col- 
leges were mobilized for instant and constant serv- 
ice. The typical college came to have fun and sport 
in planning work for the comfort of the men at the 
front and in the camps. Such were some of the 
campus and near-campus activities of the students 
and graduates. In a still wider radius were found 
many other activities. These activities came to their 
fullness in the summer of the year 1918. ISTo one of 
these services proved to be more commanding than 
that found in the Vassar I^urses' Camp in the so- 
called vacation months of that year. This camp was, 
in fact, a " Woman's Plattsburg." It gave an in- 
troductory training to women who proposed to adopt 
nursing as a profession. About one hundred and 
fifteen colleges were represented by graduates or stu- 
dents, coming from many states, in which Ohio and 
iN'ew York were first. Most of these students en- 
tered the regular training schools of hospitals with 
the season of 1918-1919. 

Wellesley college, at the request of the " Woman's 
Land Army of America," established an experiment 
station on and near its beautiful grounds. It was 
rather an experiment station than a training school. 
Its numbers were limited to thirty, who came them- 



144 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

selves from several colleges and who were already 
teachers, housekeepers, farmers and holders of good 
business places. It was in part a camp for farmers. 
Expert instruction was also given in hygiene, sani- 
tation and first aid. 

In this diverse work Smith College in cooperation 
with the Boston Psychopathic Hospital conducted a 
small school for psychiatric association work, having 
in mind the special purpose of giving aid to shell- 
shocked sufferers. Bryn Mawr provided special 
service in training leaders in industrial plants, and 
Mount Holyoke in educating groups of workers to 
aid women employed in factories to secure good hy- 
gienic and moral conditions. 

At the tip-end of Cape Cod at Provincetown the 
Association of Collegiate Alumnae established a 
Home Clubhouse for the men serving on patrol boats 
and at the radio stations. It gave an opportunity 
for recreation in a home atmosphere. 

But the services of graduates of the colleges for 
women were not confined to the home shores. The 
record of their work, though narrow in scope and 
confined to small numbers, is most impressive. Por 
the first time in history college women had a definite 
share in the activities of war or in the repair of 
war's damages. For it is ever to be remembered that 
the college for women is a distinctively new crea- 



The Womens Colleges 145 

tion. The first outstanding institutions did not offer 
instruction until tlie close of tlie Civil War in Amer- 
ica. 

A division for oversea service was first made by 
Smith. College.. Its relief workers were among the 
first of American Associations to carry help to devas- 
tated I^orthern and Eastern France. Composed of 
nurses trained and untrained, equipped with the 
proper medical staff, it bore healing to the sick and 
the wounded, sight to the blind, feet to the lame, 
bread to the hungry, a sense of home to the homeless, 
and cheer to all. To the unit was committed no less 
than sixteen villages of two thousand people, to whom 
its members were to become friends. Expelled from 
their habitat in the spring retreat of 1918, and in 
peril of capture by the enemy, they yet persevered in 
season and out of season, in every place open to their 
service. Their worth in the work of reconstruction 
was within its field most efficient. 

A similar Red Cross unit was commissioned by 
Wellesley. Among the conditions for membership 
were besides sound character, a minimum age limit 
of twenty-five years, a certificate of enduring health, 
physical and nervous, ability to speak, read and 
write easy French, a training in medicine or nurs- 
ing or social service. The unit contained members 
of diverse facilities: physicians, nurses, dieticians, 



146 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

social experts, executives and secretarial workers 
were enrolled. One division had no less than one 
hundred and fifty members. Its special field of 
work was found among the rapatries. 

Two units were sent from Vassar College, one for 
canteen service and one for reconstruction. The 
work done by Vassar graduates is typical of work 
done by graduates of all colleges. A worker in a 
canteen unit assigned to the Bordeaux district wrote 
of her doings : " In those first days I used to visit 
the camp hospital every morning with writing paper 
and tobacco and chocolate. In the afternoons I 
would sell things at the canteen and soon I began to 
make lemonade, l^ext I got up some French classes 
which the boys seem to enjoy. ... In this last 
month, I have been made chairman of the en- 
tertainment committee and I am responsible for 
seeing there is something happening at the hut 
every night. We have an inside and an outside stage 
and when I can, I try to have two entertainments 
going on at the same time, as one cannot begin to 
take care of all the men who flock to the ' Y ' in the 
evenings. Of course every so often they send us en- 
tertainers from Bordeaux but not nearly so often as 
we could wish, so we try to discover the talent that 
passes through this camp. I have had two signs 
made: 



The Women's Colleges 14Y 

CAN YOU ENTERTAIN? 

If you dance, sing, tell a funny story or do any kind of 
stunt, let us have your name here. We want you to be 
part of our Camp Hunt theatrical troupe. 

..." It isn't really possible to give much idea in 
a report of this kind of all the miscellaneous things 
that crop up for one to do in the course of a week. 
There are endless wearying details to the arranging 
of nightly programs — tramping from one barracks 
to another to interview your ' talent,' going to com- 
manders to secure cooperation, the getting of ' de- 
tails ' of men to help you with the actual labor of 
decorating a ha.ll or gathering materials, hunting up 
men to draw posters to advertise your parties, and 
multitudes of other things that have to be done. 
Sometimes you get discouraged with the enormity of 
the task and the little headway you seem to be mak- 
ing but soon after something will happen — if it's 
no more than some boy's exclamation, ' Gee, a real 
American girl ! ' — to make you realize that the kind 
of thing the women over here are doing can't be tested 
for tangible results." ^ 

It is not the primary function of the historian to 

draw inferences, but it is fitting for him to say that 

the record of gTaduates and students of American 

1 Letter from Irma Waterhouse, October 31, 1918 — Vassar 
Quarterly, February, 1919, pages 117-118. 



148 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

colleges for women, serving in tlie war, at iiome and 
abroad, proves that their hearts have the same pa- 
triotic beat as the hearts of their brothers. The half 
century of their college education gives conclusive 
evidence that they are the saviors of the race quite 
as truly as their fathers, brothers, husbands and chil- 
dren. Their strength has been tried and found not 
to be wanting in any crisis to which that strength has 
been applied. Their education creates a new asset 
for and in humanity. The higher education has in 
the past been the subject of many fears.. Among 
the fears was the apprehension lest this education 
would tend to make women remote in feeling from 
the world and unconscious of its hard, perplexing 
problems. A dread was felt that education might 
tend to nourish morbidity and unworthy self-con- 
sciousness ; and that this self -consciousness might 
create vanity and a spirit of disdain and contempt 
for the weaker classes. For many years before the 
outbreak of the war these fears seemed to fair-minded 
observers to be groundless. The war has conclusively 
and lastingly proved that women are able to stand 
in their places, doing their simple duty, whatever 
that duty might be. These college graduates have 
been decorated for bravery under fire. The number 
thus honored is small. But in conditions demanding 
heroism quite as great and endurance quite as severe, 



The Women's Colleges 149 

without resulting decorations of war crosses or orders 
of merit, they have proved themselves to be the 
worthiest. 

In the period in which such service was rendered 
abroad, women at home, still students in the colleges, 
were seeking to do their duty. Despite " alarums 
and excursions," despite Ked Cross calls, despite the 
demands of the manifold war work, despite the perils 
of infantile paralysis, and the devastating and dis- 
ruptions of influenza of the autumn of 1918, the col- 
leges for women kept steadily at their daily and 
weekly tasks. Students continued to go on their way 
toward their academic goal. An example of such 
steadiness and progress is found in the oldest of the 
great colleges for women. The President of Vassar 
College, writing in his annual report, said : 

" It is recorded in the Dean's report for the cur- 
rent academic year that, while in June, 1917, there 
were 689 who had never had a deficiency, of the 1060 
students now in college 742 have never had a condi- 
tion, and 85 per cent, of the student body are above 
our well defined requirements of the graduation 
grade." ^ 

Such testimony has great value as evidence that, 

1 Vassar College Bulletin, Vol. VIII, No. 4, Reports of the) 
President and the Treasurer for the year ending June 30, 
1919, page 4. 



150 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

though the college girl was moved by the far-off con- 
ditions of the world's suffering, yet she was faithful 
to the immediate duty. 



THE EELIGIOISr OF THE STUDENT SOLDIER 

The American college is a religious institution 
and agency. Historically it had its origin in the 
Christian church. The religious atmosphere of its 
beginning has continued in succeeding decades and 
centuries. The State University is as religious as 
the commonwealth of which it is a part — no more — 
no less. In institutions of both types, the privately 
endowed and the publicly supported, the religion pre- 
vailing is a large and free form of the Christian faith. 
The sectarian note is at present less outspoken than 
in the early time, and the reality of religious belief 
still continues. 

The prevailing type of religion is one which is 
represented in Micah's sententious interpretation of 
doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly 
with God. Micah's interpretation is continued in 
Christ's two great commandments and in the Beati- 
tudes of his Sermon on the Mount. It is a type 
which does not invite pious or frequent exhortation 

but lays emphasis on doing right, and inspires a 

151 



152 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

feeling of abhorrence of that which is not honorable 
and square. 

It has been affirmed that these student soldiers, 
possessing a sense of reality, were more religious than 
they thought themselves to be. They believed in 
goodness which, someway, they did not quite associ- 
ate with God. Whether they knew, or did not know, 
of Matthew Arnold's definition of God, they some- 
Vv^ay believed in a power not themselves which made 
for righteousness. They were in a sense pantheists. 
But their pantheism was of a very personal kind. 
One cannot say that they were " God-intoxicated." 
But one can say that they found the soul of goodness 
within themselves which was reenforced in its striv- 
ings and struggles by the spirit of goodness without. 
In fact, the spirit of badness, which was manifest to 
eye, to ear, and to heart, may itself have given em- 
phasis to the beneficent soul within their own bosoms. 

This type of religion was especially pervasive. 
The thoughts of students on the campus and in camp 
were turned Godward. Face to face with what are 
called the eternal realities, each man sought to ad- 
just himself to the realities in feeling, in reflection, 
and in choice. The endeavor for self -adjustment 
was not as active or as timely for the soldier 
student on the campus or in the camp as for the 
student soldier on the firing line; but for both the 



The Religion of the Student Soldier 153 

eternal motive was insistent and vital. Perhaps the 
strongest note in this endeavor was the note of un- 
conscious self-sacrifice. The men gave themselves 
freely, largely, exultantly. So complete was the ex- 
ultation that the sacrifice was not at all interpreted in 
terms of sacrifice. The college student in his re- 
flectiveness desired to help humanity, to enlarge and 
to enrich the agencies of human betterment, to pre- 
serve ideals in a world sordid and mean, to ennoble 
and to make lasting a high civilization. In the se- 
curing of these lofty purposes he was willing to share 
in the last and supreme act of devotion. 

The work which the college did in the cause of re- 
ligion was usually done through the Young Men's 
Christian Association and the Knights of Columbus. 
Of course, chaplains commissioned by the govern- 
ment were in the service and not a few of them won 
great results. But the chaplain not infrequently 
stood for individualism, and individualism in this 
war did not have the opportunity for usefulness 
which it possessed in former wars. Yet not a few 
clergymen gave a personal service of unspeaka,ble 
worth. 

The chaplain in both the American and English 
armies seems to have had a job, perhaps no harder 
than other wars offer, but it was surrounded by con- 
ditions which were especially trying. Writing of the 



154 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

Englisli chaplains, tlie author of " A Private in the 
Guards " has said : 

" They could not preach the Sermon on the Mount 
because they thought loving your enemies contrary 
to the spirit of the war. They could not inveigh 
against lust because the medical officer was of opinion 
that l^ature's needs must be satisfied. They could 
not attack bad language because it was accepted as 
manly. They could not attack drunkenness because 
it was the men's relaxation, and a good drinker was 
considered a good fighter. What was there for a 
poor padre to say to the men ? " ^ 

But, despite these limitations, the value of personal 
character in the army as manifest in the chaplain was 
of primary worth.i If he represented the best quali- 
ties of manhood, virile and sympathetic, kind without 
softness, laborious and sacrificing, determined 
to help every man, fearing no peril and accepting no 
favor, he was a force at once commanding and per- 
suasive. But if he were cowardly and selfish, the 
soldiers had no respect for him, and gave no respon- 
sive hearing to his words. His advice did not com- 
mand their regard, and his character received merited 
contempt. Yet be it said comprehensively that the 
American, like the English chaplain, deserves the bet- 
1 " A Private in the Guards," by Stephen Graham, page 243. 



The Religion of the Student Soldier 155 

ter interpretation whicli Mr. Graham gives of the 
English : 

" I met whilst I was in France some ten or twelve 
chaplains. They all had pleasant personalities, and 
it was a relief to converse with them after the rough- 
and-ready wit of the men. I saw them from a differ- 
ent angle from that in which they were seen by the 
officers. What struck me most about them was the 
extraordinary way they seemed to make their minds 
fit to the official demands made upon opinion. They 
always rapidly absorbed the official point of view 
about the war, and often the officers' point of view 
as well." ^ 

It was, however, the Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciation which, through service religious and social, 
secured the best results. The college contributed of 
its students, of its professors as well as of its grad- 
uates, to this enrollment. The " hut " became a 
unique place in every camp, both at home and abroad. 
This hut to the soldier stood for his home. It gave 
not only shelter, but also recreation, friendliness, 
comfort. It represented an ideal, realized to the sol- 
dier, of human well being. It also helped to main- 
tain morale as well as to give happiness. The work 
was established as a large human work. Whatever 

1 Ibid., page 244. 



156 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

related to the welfare of the soldier as an individual 
or of the group was regarded as its function. It was 
recreational service in the largest sense. It con- 
sisted in managing a canteen, or a camp post, in sell- 
ing cigarettes, chocolate, and whatever might min- 
ister to the soldier's happiness, in talking to wounded 
men in hospital, in writing letters for those who could 
not write, in recommending books to those who were 
indifferent, in arranging boxing bouts for exercise 
and for fun, in getting instruments for a brass band 
and in organizing the players. Such work did not 
supplement sermons, yet, the sermons were not neg- 
lected. The traditionally religious side of the serv- 
ice might seem to be neglected, but the religious im- 
pulse was consciously, or unconsciously, at the base of 
the life of many student soldiers. 

There arose toward the close of the war criticism. 

The criticism of the Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciation touched both personnel and method. First: 
Unworthy men were selected as secretaries or field 
executives. Second: The work was commercial- 
ized, or was not made properly Christian. In its 
commercial relation goods were sold, it was charged, 
at a higher price than the costs warranted. The an- 
swer to these criticisms was made, that in an en- 
rollment of executives numbering several thousand 
men, it was to be expected that some would be found 



The Religion of the Student Soldier 157 

either incompetent or dishonest, or both. The second 
charge, of a lack of the religious element, was met by 
the interpretation that the conditions did not allow, 
or did not at least provide for, religious presentations. 
One chaplain said to me that the charge could not 
have been made if the word " Christian " had been 
struck out of the corporate name. In all these di- 
verse services college men held a large share. Col- 
lege teachers of French became teachers to American 
soldiers. College graduates of all callings became 
executives and undergraduates helped in many and 
diverse fields.^ 

1 The following examples are typical of the variety of the 
services to which college men gave themselves: 

A bishop's VAKIED SUNDAY 

" The Protestant Episcopal bishop of Erie, Pa., is having the 
time of his life over here among the soldiers. He is one of 
those who have made good as a speaker to the soldiers, and 
he itinerates among the huts, visiting with the men by day 
and addressing meetings at night. His everyday vestments 
are a uniform, and the fact that he is a bishop means a deal 
less to the boys than that he is ' a good Scout.' Naturally 
on Sunday the bishop administers the communion at least 
once, for the soldiers show a desire for the sacrament greater 
than they display at home. Recently after the first large ac- 
tion in which the Americans were independently engaged, the 
bishop held two communion services for the men on Sunday 
morning — and in the afternoon he sold cigarettes and candy 
over the counter of the ' Y.' And everybody who knows the 
conditions here believes that the latter action was also a 
Christian ministry. 

OTHEB VARIETIES OF " Y " WORKERS 

" The personnel of this many sided work for the troops is an 



158 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

Perhaps the most distinctive work, religious or 
semi-religious, done by the colleges through their 
students was found in the contribution of money made 
for the relief of prisoners of war, for men in the 

exhaustive topic, A Standard Oil magnate was over here 
looking into things and getting a sample of what the Y. M. 
C. A. ministry is. On his first night at the front, when his 
truck had heen under the German fire, the supply of gasoline 
gave out, as if in mockery of the oil man's presence, and he 
had to walk several miles through the night to get to the 
base. Then he went oflf to a difficult front-line hut, where 
he learned how to work without being able to call upon a 
secretary or a staff of assistants, and to his credit be it said 
he did good service for the soldiers, none of whom knew that 
he was not a preacher or other professional Y. M. C. A. 
worker. 

ENJOYMENT IN HABD, DANGiaiOUS WORK 

" These Y. M. C. A. men got farther to the front than even 
the correspondents. Three have been wounded thus far, and 
one woman worker has been killed by shell fire. It is almost 
a daily experience for the drivers of the trucks to pass through 
the fire zone, and I noticed that the Red Triangle on one of 
the trucks had been dented by shrapnel. These men carry gas 
masks as naturally and as inevitably as the cowboys used to 
carry pistols. A steel helmet is a part of every driver's 
equipment. 

" All this quickly becomes a matter of course. On the front 
above Toul I have met repeatedly a business man of Colum- 
bus, O., who has left his store and banks and other interests, 
and is out here in the fire zone, working night and day upon 
the task of organizing and directing the business end of sup- 
plying the soldiers with the incidentals which can be got only 
through the ' Y.' It is the hardest work this man has ever 
done, but never has he enjoyed anything more. 

" In one of the base cities, where there are many American 



The Religion of the Student Soldier 159 

armies, and for tlie wounded in the war zones. Over 
a million dollars was given by the students and offi- 
cers of the American colleges for this beautiful and 
unique purpose. The amount contributed by differ- 
ent colleges is significant and impressive. N^orth- 
western University, $12,000 ; University of Chicago, 
$15,427; University of Illinois, $27,563; Purdue 
University, $18,960; Iowa State College, $23,000; 
tJniversity of Michigan, $23,000; University of 
Minnesota, $27,500; University of l^ebraska, $21,- 
057; Ohio State University, $17,407; Western Ke- 
serve University, $12,961 ; University of Wisconsin, 
$21,000. The money thus raised was called a 
Friendship Fund. It was spent, as I have said, in 
aiding prisoners and in promoting the efficiency of all 
the causes in which the students were interested. 
The worth of the service thus rendered overseas was 
great ; the worth of the work done for the givers them- 
selves was even greater. Above all else it proved the 

troops, there ia a Western physician, with his two adult 
daughters, who is running a Y. M. C. A. caf6 and concert hall 
for the men, at his own charge. Few American families, out- 
side of actual military service, are doing so much for the 
cause as he. 

" Upwards of 2000 ' Y ' workers are now in France. Seventy- 
five per cent, of them have ' made good.' But as many more 
beyond draft age, are needed. They have to stand in the 
stead of mother and father and home and church to an entire 
army of boys." William T. Ellis in Boston Transcript, Jime 
Ist, 1918. 



160 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

unity of the hearts of all students with each other, 
and the unity of their hearts with all men in distress. 

The training given to the Young Men's Christian 
Association workers was entrusted in certain cases 
to members of the college faculties. Members of the 
Princeton faculty, in the spring of 1918, served as 
teachers for one hundred and fifty men who were 
about to go abroad. Courses in conversational 
French were perhaps the most common, but also the 
teaching took on a larger relationship, being con- 
cerned with Erench life, ideals, manners and cus- 
toms. In this service the teachers of Romance in 
all colleges of America felt a deep interest. ]^ot a 
few of them volunteered themselves, but also they 
promoted the going of their students. Through ad- 
dresses and through their writings they quickened 
the interest of thoughtful men in the service to be 
rendered by colleges through the Y. M. C. A. in 
France, in England, and wherever was found the 
American soldier. 

In the broad interpretation of religion, it is also 
to be said that the American college, through the 
same Association and by other methods, did much in 
the promotion of the moral purity of the life of the 
American soldier. Without doubt the American 
Army was the cleanest of all armies. Toward this 
result not only the religious and the ethical impulse 



The Eeligion of the Student Soldier 161 

was directed, but also medical science and medical 
cooperation. The peril of venereal disease was con- 
stantly impressed upon soldiers; and in official and 
unofficial ways the duty of clean-mindedness and of 
clean living were enforced.^ Another special form 
of religious and social work was found in the ambu- 
lance field service. This service, beginning before 
the formal entrance of the United States into the 
war, enrolled not far from two thousand men. 
These students went straight from their class-rooms 
to Elanders Fields and Vosges Mountains. Toward 
this number Harvard sent more than three hundred ; 
Yale and Princeton about two hundred men each. 
It was the service of the good Samaritan rendered 

1 An American college professor, Lieutenant Eaymond V, 
Phelan, issued a note entitled — " Our New Morality " : — 

" Sexually speaking, one of three courses will be followed by 
every American soldier entering France. ( 1 ) He will practice 
the sexual continence that his commander is expected to teach, 
and enforce by scrupulously moral conduct on his own part. 
(2) He may take where opportunity offers dastardly advan- 
tage of the moral women of the French nation. (3) He may, 
at the cost of future disease and misery in America, patronize 
the unfortunate woman. Many and many a soldier has with 
evident honesty and sincerity of purpose assured the writer 
that he has lived a clean life in the army and will continue 
to do so. If the question of sexual morality is pursued by 
commanders with vigor and determination, may not the Amer- 
ican soldier manfully respond, and give us as one of the 
many splendid products of the war a greatly improved stand- 
ard of moral conduct among American men ? " 



162 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

under perils far more perilous by day and by nigbt, 
near front-line trenches and in shell-swept areas, than 
the good Samaritan ever dreamed of. 

Service of the same glorious type was given by the 
men of Oxford and of other British Universities. 
Writing near the close of the year 1916, an Oxford 
lecturer said: 

" It is two years now since they began to go over 
to Belgium and the occupied territories of France; 
and there, setting themselves between the hammer 
and the anvil, among suspicion and surveillance, in 
unremitting toil and with patient organization, they 
labored to relieve the destitute and to visit the needy 
in their affliction. Such work became, as it seemed, a 
part of their Oxford course; and each new student 
who came from America, after staying a little while, 
crossed over, as if in duty bound, for his term of 
service on the other side. As time went on new doors 
were opened and new duties were undertaken. 
When the bombardment of Verdun was fiercest, and 
the sleet of iron and fire drove with the deadliest in- 
tensity against its walls, the American Ambulance 
was there, and American students were with the am- 
bulance of their country. Turning chauffeurs and 
mechanics — chauffeurs and mechanics of an infinite 
resource and sagacity — they drove thousands of 



The Religion of the Student Soldier 163 

the wounded soldiers of France, along icebound, slip- 
pery roads, from the field of battle to their haven of 
rest ; and if their cars broke down, as American cars 
would sometimes do, they set them triumphantly to 
rights by the roadside, and in a few hours were driv- 
ing quietly forward again to their base. ISFor were 
their goings and doings only in Belgium and in 
France ; they went even farther afield, and there were 
some who, seeking the farthest bounds of the far-flung 
battle line, went out to find ways of service and 
ministration in India, or in Africa, or in Mesopo- 
tamia," ^ 

The general effect of war and its circumstance on 
the religious beliefs and practice of college men was 
at least sixfold. 

First : the war served to exalt the student's and the 
graduate's sense of patriotism and of humanitarian- 
ism into a religion, or, — to change the point of view, 
— it served to incarnate the chief expression of his 
religion in his love for country and for man. If re- 
ligion be defined as the relation which man holds to 
God, the college man's religion in the course of the 
war soon passed out of this definition into a faith in 
and a loyalty to his country and to all men. 

1 " Mothers and Sons in War Time," by Ernest Barker, 
pages 60 and 61. 



164 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

Second : Such a religion was therefore essentially 
an ethical system and interpretation of the relation 
of men to each other. The soldier student believed, 
and practiced, not only that he should love his neigh- 
bor as himself, but even more than himself. He 
should be prepared, and be glad, to die for his neigh- 
bor. The willingness to die for one's neighbor has, 
of course, tens of thousands of illustrations, and, what 
is perhaps more important, the willingness to endure 
pain, dreaded more than death itself, has hundreds 
of thousands of illustrations. These examples are 
equally common among college men and among those 
who dwell without academic walls. An English 
chaplain tells of his entering a dugout just taken 
from the Germans and of finding himseK stifled with 
the foul air. He said something sympathetic to 
the man who lay on a bed of clay beside him. The 
man's answer was, " ' This ! This is paradise to 
what we've been through before we took the ridge.' " 
Continuing, Dr. Kelman says, " Add to this the con- 
stant call to face atrocious danger, and the pain of 
wounds while they lay untended on the field. Then 
remember the thousands who have gone with open 
eyes to certain death, to hold an outpost or to save a 
company ; and the many instances of officers and men 
who have thrown themselves upon live bombs that 
they might save their neighbors by the sacrifice of 



The Religion of the Student Soldier 165 

their own lives, or in other ways have deliberately 
given their lives for others." ^ 

Third : The third effect lay in what may be said to 
be the realm of the imagination. Yet this imagina- 
tion was rather a force than a field of the college 
man's religion. It stood for the intellectual way in 
which religion made its appeal. It lay in the sense 
that one is living a great life, doing a great work, 
inspired by a great motive, measuring up to the great- 
est possibilities within his bosom. It is keeping step 
with one's fellow soldier in life's march. It is the 
sense of music in one's soul. It is the meaning of 
the lump in the throat. 

Fourth : But while this sense of imagination was a 
method of interpretation of the student's relation to 
God, this religion was also to him a deep and ever in- 
creasing sense of loyalty. The gospel of sincerity, of 
truthfulness to the fact, was dear to him. He de- 
tested sham, pretense, counterfeit. He hated the 
false as the devil holy water. His hatred was col- 
ored through and through with scorn and contempt. 
This sense of reality caused him to turn with confi- 
dence to the men who as clergymen, as priests, or as 
Christian Association secretaries called out his belief 
in their integrity and honesty. This sense of reality 

1 " The War and Preaching," by Rev. Dr, John Kelman, 
page 86. 



166 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

touched both his assent to truth and his friendship 
for the individual. 

Fifth: This same sense of reality inevitably re- 
sulted in a simplicity of religious beliefs. The col- 
lege man's creed M^as short. The Fatherhood of 
God was its first, and chief, article, and perhaps its 
last also and this article had phrases which possibly 
belonged quite as much to the heart as to the reason. 
It was interpreted in the terms of the emotions and 
sentiments quite as often, and always as deeply, as 
in terms of the intellect. It recognized, often uncon- 
sciously, Pascal's truth that the heart has its reasons 
of which the reason knows not. 

Sixth: Such a simple creed, of course, led to an 
elimination of the great sectarian divisions which 
now afflict the church. ^NTot only were the minor 
Protestant distinctions wiped out, but also the Jew- 
ish, the Roman Catholic and the Protestant faiths 
were in certain foundations united. Over the grave 
of a brave soldier, the rabbi, the priest and the minis- 
ter offered a common prayer to one God. The ele- 
mental and fundamental realities, the suffering and 
the fellowship of life and of death, joined men to- 
gether in religious faith and act. 



XI 



POETEY AS AN INTEKPEETATION OF THE WAE 

Literature, as a force and form of life, has its 
fount and origin in the college, and it is continued 
by the academic tradition. The literature of the war 
has already taken on several forms, — history, essay, 
letters, poetry. Of course, these writings are only 
the beginning of interpretations which will go on for 
unnumbered centuries. But, at the present moment, 
the poetry, which the war inspired, is probably the 
most significant contribution of a literary kind, made 
by the graduate or student. For, in all definitions of 
poetry, feeling and imagination are the true con- 
stants, and feeling and imagination are most domi- 
nant in the heart and mind of youth, and possibly 
most completely dominant in the heart and mind 
of the youth of the academic plane trees. Yet it 
should at once be said that the contribution, made 
by American college students and graduates to the 
poetry of the war, is slight. Compared with the 
contribution made by the graduates of British uni- 
versities, it is small in amount and meager in quality. 

167 



168 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

An examination of the larger share of all poems 
written by college men of both nations necessitates 
the conclusion that they do not represent the full tide 
of English song. The reason is perhaps evident 
enough for the American paucity. 

Although, in a real human sense, the war was Amer- 
ica's from August, 1914, — in a technical, govern- 
mental sense, it was not America's until almost three 
years after. The period of America's participation 
was brief. The war was also three thousand miles 
away. It was farther away from the majority of the 
American people and of most college men than three 
thousand miles of distance would intimate. For re- 
moteness in relationship added to remoteness in dis- 
tance. It was not until the declaration of war was 
made that the academic flags were unfurled or the 
college bugle sounded. Therefore the poet was 
dumb, as the government seemed to some numb. 

The English poetry of the war, coming from either 
Oxford or Cambridge, from Scottish or Midland Uni- 
versity, was unlike the typical war songs. It had 
none of the martial glory of the " Charge of the Light 
Brigade." It was likewise remote from Campbell's 
" Songs of Battle," " The Battle of the Baltic," " ITa- 
poleon and the British Sailor," and " The Power of 
Russia." Such were not the themes of which the Ox- 
ford poet dreamed. The English verse of the war 



Poetry as an Interpretation of the War 169 

was rather moral than martial, rather psychological 
than patriotic, rather human than national or even 
international. It was indeed concerned with the di- 
vine quite as much as with the human. 

The poem of both the American and the British 
student was the poetry of the inner life. It was what 
the philosophers call subjective. It might be named 
romantic, in case one substitutes man for nature in 
the usual definition. It was an aspiration, like 
Gothic architecture. Little, or none, of the complete- 
ness of the classical type did it have. Many of these 
verses are like the Hebrew Psalms, poems of the per- 
sonal life, of character, of struggle,, of resignation, of 
victory. They remind one of George Herbert's 
precious verse. The typical poem was concerned 
with righteousness and honor, with endurance of 
heart and will, with hopefulness in darkness and in 
days of despair, with the glory of sacrifice, with the 
broodingness of mystery, with the belief that the un- 
seen is the eternal and that the unseen means the 
right, with sympathy for the sorrowing and with ex- 
ultation for the glorified, with hatred of despotism 
and with the beauty of the new republic of man, with 
the heroism of our common humanity, with the maj- 
esty of concerted and cooperative obedience, with 
patience in the dies irae, with the constant presence 
of the dead and of their imperishable life. 



170 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

Illustrations of these sentiments are more easily 
found in English than in American verse. Captain 
Charles Hamilton Sorley, who died in October, 1915, 
at the age of twenty years, cries out : 

" And let me stand so and defy them all. 
The martyr's exultation leaps in me, 
And I am joyous, joyous ! " ^ 

Captain Richard Dennys, who was killed at the 
Somme, exclaims : 

" My day was happy — and perchance 
The coming night is full of stars." ^ 

Rifleman S.. Donald Cox, in his song " To my 
Mother," says: 

" If I should fall, grieve not that one so weak and 
poor as I should die, but say 

' I too had a son ; 
He died for England's sake ! ' " 3 

Lieutenant Mackintosh, of the Seaforth Highland- 
ers, before his death in action, in ISTovember, 1917, 
writes : 

iThe South Atlcmtic Quarterly/, April, 1918, "The Spirit 
of Youth in Arms," by Walter Graham, page 91. 
2 Ibid., page 92. 
S Ibid. 



Poetry as an Interpretation of the War 111 

"If I die to-morrow 
I shall go happily. 
With the flush of battle on my face 
I shall walk with an eager pace 
The road I cannot see." ^ 

Sucli examples could be continued to the number 
of almost three score of those who fell singing. If 
Germany had her Korner, friend of Goethe and 
Schiller, student at Leipsic, whose last poem was 
written the very day of his last battle — a song to his 
bride, his sword, who, at less than twenty-two years 
of age, fell fighting for the cause of liberty, England 
and America had their singing sons who died also on 
the field of honor. Their years were few. Their 
poems were also few. But the great experience 
brought into vivid, and often powerful, expression 
what would have required many years of the daily 
round and common task to effect. 

Of all the English singers, the poems of Thomas 
Hardy and of Rupert Brooke perhaps give the richest 
promise of lastingness. Rupert Brooke's five son- 
nets go down the deepest and reach up the highest. I 
cannot deny myself the right of quoting the familiar 
and ever moving lines entitled, " The Soldier " : — 

1 In making these quotations, I wish specially to acknowledge 
the great service which my associate, Walter Graham, has 
given. 



172 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

If I should die, think only this of me : 

That there's some corner of a foreign field 
That is forever England. There shall be 

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; 
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, 

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, 
A body of England's, breathing English air. 

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. 

And think, this heart, all evil shed away, 
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less 

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England 
given ; 
Her sights and sounds ; dreams happy as her day ; 
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness. 
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.^ 

With Rupert Brooke, I associate an American, a 
son of Harvard, Alan Seeger. 

Brooke and Seeger were alike in age, alike in gen- 
eral educational condition, although one came from 
the American and the other from the English Cam- 
bridge, alike in a desire to know and to feel experi- 
ence, alike in that to each life was a cup which each 
willed to drink, both to its fullness and to its depths, 
alike in binding to themselves friendships, not with 
hoops of steel, but with willovsry bands of mutual 
love, alike in wide travel, and alike in romantic 

1 " The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke," John Lane Com- 
pany, with Introduction by George Edward Woodberry, 
page 111. 



Poetry as an Interpretation of the War 173 

vision and power and promise. They were also alike 
in coming into and in giving up life, within a few 
months of each other, in its early years, while still 
the victory was seen only by the eye of faith. Of the 
two, the Englishman is undoubtedly the greater. An 
assured place he holds in the gallery of song. But 
Seeger is also sure of a lasting place, even if not so 
high. His " I have a Rendezvous with Death " and 
his " Ode in Memory of the American Volunteers 
Fallen for France " are to endure as bronze. I 
wish to write out " I have a Rendezvous with Death," 
as standing for the most moving poem written by an 
American college graduate who served as a soldier. 

I have a rendezvous with Death 
At some disputed barricade, 
When Spring comes back with rustling shade 
And apple-blossoms fill the air — 
I have a rendezvous with Death 
When Spring brings back blue days and fair. 

It may be he shall take my hand 
And lead me into his dark land, 
And close my eyes and quench my breath — 
It may be I shall pass him still. 
I have a rendezvous with Death 
On some scarred slope of battered hill, 
When Spring comes round again this year 
And the first meadow-flowers appear. 

God knows 'twere better to be deep 
Pillowed in silk and scented down, 



1Y4 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep, 
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath. 
Where hushed awakenings are dear, . . . 
But I've a rendezvous with Death 
At midnight in some flaming town. 
When Spring trips north again this year, 
And I to my pledged word am true, 
I shall not fail that rendezvous.^ 

It must not, however, be inferred that all the 
poetry of college soldiers, or of soldiers of any type, 
was of the heroic couplet only. All experiences of 
the camp, of the march, of the mess, of the drill, came 
into view. Some of the resulting verses were witty, 
some were humorous, some were profane — sinlessly 
and properly profane! Yfet the quantity of happy 
verse was small, and its general quality was that of 
doggerel. Perhaps the most popular of all such verse 
was a burlesque of Kipling's " Gunga Din " which, 
under the title of " Hunk o' Tin," was dear to sol- 
diers both at home and overseas.^ The simple truth 

1 " Poems by Alan Seeger," with an Introduction by William 
Archer, page 144. 

2 The paint is not so good 
And no doubt you'll find the hood 
Will rattle like a boiler shop en route; 
The radiator may boil 
And perhaps she's leakin' oil, 
Then often times the horn declines to toot. 
But when the night is black 
And there's blesses to take back 
And they hardly give you time to take a smoke; 



Poetry as an Interpretation of the War 175 

is that life and death, suifering and shock, and all ex- 
periences, actual or imagined, were altogether too 
common and too somber to invite the light touch. I 
have sought among many pages of verse to find ex- 
amples of quickened pleasure and merriment in the 
writer. One of the few, which I do venture to quote, 
seems to bear in its spirit the ring of some of Kip- 
ling's lines. Kipling ever appeals to the soldier's 
soul. It has the title of " The Song of the Dead Am- 
bulance Men." 

We're sick of your harps and your haloes, of your well- 
kept heavenly things. 

Of your roads without even a shell-hole (we'll be damned 
if we'll use your wings). 

We're sick and tired of smoking when cigarettes flow so 
free 

That we throw the butts half-burnt beside your Pearly 
Sea. 

We know that we died like heroes for the lives of the men 
who fell. 

It is mighty good to feel 

When you're sitting at the wheel, 

She'll be running when the bigger cars are broke. 

Oh it's Din Din Din. 

If it happens there's a ditch you've skidded in 

Don't be worried but just shout 

Till some poilu boosts you out 

And you're glad she's not so heavy Hunk o' tin. 
Dedicated to the Memory of Car No. 423, S. S. U. 13 Mort 
May 8th, 1917, by C. O. Battershell. From Weekly pub- 
lished in Paris. 



1Y6 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

But that's no smitten reason why we have to grow fat as 

hell! 
Say, give us the ghost of an ambulance and let us drive 

away 
Somewhere, where there's an angel-fight, and there, by the 

Lord, we'll stay.^ 

These numerous quotations may tend to give the 
impression that it was only the college men v^^ho fell 
fighting who v^rrote great odes. 'No impression could 
be further from the fact. Though the toll of singers 
was heart-breaking — some fifty in number, of 
American and of English birth — yet there were 
singers who were not able to wear khaki, or, if they 
wore it, who did not fall, whose voices will last for 
the decades or the centuries. The psychological im- 
agination may interpret war quite as deeply in the 
college yard and lawn as in the trench, or in the hos- 
pital. The only question is whether the writer does 
possess the imagination of a poet. The actual par- 
ticipation in the battle, if adding to the historic im- 
pressiveness of the scene, may yet serve to congest 
and to stifle the imagination. In order to discover 
war poems which were not written with the point of 
the sword dipped in the blood of the writer, one need 
not go beyond Tennyson's " Ode on the Death of the 
Duke of Wellington," or Whitman's " Drum Taps." 

1 Field Service Bulletin, June 22, 1918, published weekly at 
Paris, " The Song of Dead Ambulance Men," by S. L. Conklin. 



Poetry as an Interpretation of the War 177 

ISTeither tlie Englishman nor the American singer 
stood on the firing line. 

These poems, and numberless others which might 
be gathered up, are, on the whole, as was said at the 
beginning of this chapter, poems of the inner life. 
They are essentially studies of the soul. Being 
studies of the soul, they are impressively alike. They 
are sung in many meters and to many tunes. But 
they do serve to illustrate Shelley's remark when he 
speaks of " That great poem which all poets, like the 
cooperating thoughts of one great mind, have built 
up since the beginning of the world." 

Seeger, Brooke, and their fellow singers, like 
Keats, Shelley, and Byron, died young. In few 
years, and brief, they experienced much and lived 
deeply. They had passion and thought and reflec- 
tion. Both of them had vision, vision of the heart, as 
well as of the poetic imagination. 

\Vhat Brooke or Seeger would have produced had 
they lived to the age of forty, or of fifty, is as vain 
as to ask to what heights Keats would have soared 
had he lived to twice his score and six years. One 
recalls that the life of Tennyson and of Browning be- 
gan in or near the first, and closed in or near the last, 
decade of the nineteenth century. One does not for- 
get either that Pope, of a wholly unlike order, had at- 
tained, in his three decades, a secure place in Eng- 



178 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

lish. poesy. But Brooke belonged to an order of sing- 
ers of the inner life which is as capable of as endless 
a development and of as diverse attainment as are 
the depths and variations of the human soul. One 
must be content in reverently and sorrowfully think- 
ing with one greater than either the young Ameri- 
can or the young English singer, " For Lycidas is 
dead, dead ere his prime." 

Without doubt the Commemoration Ode of James 
Russell Lowell still remains as the most quickening 
of all war poems written in America. Bold would 
be the prophet who should declare that as great an 
ode would be inspired to commemorate the world 
war. Standing next to it, though at a distance, is 
a sonnet of a friend and disciple of Lowell, Wood- 
berry : — 

" I pray for peace; yet peace is buft a, prayer. 
How many wars have been in my brief years ! 
All races and all faiths, both hemispheres. 
My eyes have seen embattled everywhere 
The wide earth through ; yet do I not despair 
Of peace, that slowly through far ages nears. 
Though not to me the golden morn appears; 
My faith is perfect in time's issue fair. 

For man doth build on an eternal scale. 

And his ideals are framed of hope deferred; 

The millennium came not ; yet Christ did not fail. 
Though ever unaccomplished is His word; 



Poetry as an Interpretation of the War 1T9 

Him Prince of Peace, though unenthroned, we hail, 
Supreme when in all bosoms He be heard." ^ 

The poet is he who sees into the inmost heart of 
things. The history of the war in its realities, in its 
dismays, in its despairs and distresses, in its heroisms 
and victories, in its partings and sorrows, in its 
glories and exultations, will ever find imperishable 
symbols and tokens in the poems of college men. 
They are a moving interpretation of the experiences 
of the nations and of all men. 

" Across the calm, clear sky of God 
A great white glory gleams. 
The young men find the altar-stairs 
Of world-rapt hopes and dreams. 
The Beast shall crumble into dust. 
The blood-stained crown will fall 
Before the shining armies 
Of the Lord, the God of AH." 2 

1 Sonnets written in the Fall of 1914, by George Edward 
Woodberry. 

2 American Field Service Bulletin, Paris, May 18, 1918; 
" Dawn/' by Sherman L, Conklin, 



XII 



IJSTTEKJS'ATIOlSrAL EEiLATIONS 

As the war was an international war, so the rela- 
tions of American colleges to other nations and to 
their educational forces hecame significant. These 
relations assumed several forms. Among these forms 
was a study of the language and literature of differ- 
ent peoples and especially of France, the reception by 
the colleges of academic commissions from these 
countries; the offering and the acceptance of hos- 
pitality to American teachers in foreign capitols ; the 
transfer of college education under American condi- 
tions to the camps in France; and the entrance of 
American student soldiers into British and French 
universities. It was a unique record of diverse ex- 
periences, of gracious courtesies and of forceful ef- 
ficiency. 

Early in the great conflict the antagonistic feeling 
of the American college toward Germany became 
manifest. The forcefulness of the command or the 
wisdom of the counsel of the president to maintain 
neutrality was not sufficiently strong to prevent most 

180 



Intemaiional Relations 181 

colleges from indicating their sympathy with the 
cause of the Allies. The pro-German expressions 
were far less numerous and less compelling than the 
great number of American teachers educated in Ber- 
lin, Leipsic and Munich would have given ground 
for expecting. As the war advanced, however, the 
antagonism became more ardent; and at the time of 
America's entrance, the German cause found few 
friends in American institutions of the higher educa- 
tion. 

The international relation took on in a striking de- 
gree the linguistic form. In a special way it at once 
came to be related to the abolition of German as a 
study in the public schools and colleges. On one side 
the demand was strong and insistent that all associa- 
tion with the language and the literature of a people 
commonly believed to be so inhuman and bestial 
should cease. This demand was heard in such vig- 
orous paragraphs as these: 

" The sound of the German language or the sight of a 
printed page in German, reminds us of the murder of a 
million helpless old men, unarmed men, women and chil- 
dren; the driving of about 100,000 young French, Belgian 
and Polish women into compulsory prostitution for Ger- 
many's soldiers; . . . the destruction of many hospital 
and relief ships, and the crucifixion of Canadian soldier 
prisoners. 

" Henceforth in all English speaking countries, the Ger- 



182 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

man language will be a handicap to every person who uses 
it. In America, in England and all British dependencies, 
the German language now is a dead language! All those 
who speak it or read it will in self-defense conceal that 
fact. Never again will it be needed anywhere in the 
Western Hemisphere, save as a reference language. Ger- 
man * science ' now is just as loathsome as German mili- 
tarism. What is more, it will long remain so." ^ 

Under such emotional excitement many cities and 
towns eliminated German from their course of study. 
In Wisconsin the number of schools offering studies 
in German fell from two hundred and eighty-five to 
forty-eight. The colleges, however, were not moved, 
under emotional stress to action so drastic. Yet, the 
colleges did find that the students, taking the matter 
into their own hands, were cutting out German from 
their list of electives. Institutions excused about 
one-half of their professors of German, having little 
teaching for them to give, and the number of stu- 
dents of German fell in some colleges to a tenth of 
the former enrollment.. 

But councils saner and safer came to prevail in 
most colleges and universities in the autumn of the 
year in which the armistice was signed. It was re- 
membered and remarked that industrial relations 
would finally be reestablished with Germany and that 

1 " Throw Out the German Language and All Disloyal 
Teachers," published by American Defense Society, Inc., New 
York, pages 1 and 2. 



International Relations 183 

a knowledge of the language would aid in such re- 
establishment. It was pointed out that the technical 
and scientific writings of Germany were valuable. 
It was arg-ued that the history of Germany and its 
philology shed light on English history and research. 
It waSj of course, declared that Goethe and Schiller 
are universal interpreters. The persuasiveness of 
the arguments received emphasis from the extent to 
which German was studied in the schools of England 
and of France. The number of schools studying the 
language in England in the year 1918 was practically 
equivalent to the number studying it in the year 
1911. France likewise was pursuing a wiser policy 
than was pursued in the schools in certain American 
states and capitols. The antagonism to everything 
German that was manifested in France in the first 
months of the war had largely passed away by the 
year 1916. The Minister of Public Instruction un- 
der the influence of normal popular opinion was able 
to say that from one-fourth to one-third of all pupils 
enrolled in French schools were studying the lan- 
guage, which two years before had been tabooed. It 
was argued by the Ministerial Commission in a re- 
port made to the Ministry of War, that France should 
not be ignorant of the German language. Every 
manifestation of her activities should be watched. 
Her veneer of innocent goodness naturally demanded 



184 Colleges and Universities in the Oreat War 

special insight of the watchmen. The wisest method 
and strongest force for securing such knowledge lay 
in a knowledge of the German tongue. 

Yet, though the study of the German language was 
declining in American colleges, as well as the force of 
German arms in France, the language of France it- 
self was advancing, as well as the French arms, in 
the autumn of 1918. If the number of German stu- 
dents was divided by four or a larger figure, the num- 
ber of French students was multiplied also by at 
least four. The teachers of the Romance languages 
in seventeen American universities addressed a let- 
ter to other co-workers in the country, in which in 
moving paragraphs it was said : 

" The heart and the mind of America are turning, as 
never before, to France. To us the signs of this new in- 
terest appear in the increased enrollments in Ftench re- 
ported by many schools and colleges. It is for us to guide 
and develop this interest, to make it intelligent, to satisfy 
it, to give it permanence. 

" If we have taught willingly before, we should teach 
now with a whole-hearted enthusiasm. We are the inter- 
preters of France to America. Let us, in comment and in 
choice of books, select for emphasis just those elements 
of French life and French thought that our own country 
most needs: resolute clearness, keen analysis, respect for 
the idea, open-mindedness, reference to universal stand- 
ards, the acquisition of liberty through discipline. 

" In our linguistic courses there is need for the confirma- 



International Relations 185 

tion and the extension of new purposes and new methods. 
In years past the main object of our work, both secondary 
and collegiate, was to enable the student to understand 
printed French. Recently the rights of spoken French 
have received increasing recognition. Now, as a result of 
the war, those rights are evident. For there is now, and 
there will be in the time of peace, a mingling of the two 
peoples, the French and the American, such as there has 
never been before. Of those whom we teach many will 
have cause to go to France, many will welcome Frenchmen 
here. Our former pupils as a whole, have not received 
a speaking knowledge of French; and those among them 
who are facing service abroad are painfully conscious of 
the lack. The students in our enlarging classes to-day 
want spoken French, and they are entitled to have the 
want supplied. 

" In the Italian courses there is need for the same 
change in linguistic plan, and for similar discrimination 
in critical emphasis. We may well seek the broad vision 
of life from the mount of the centuries, the patience, the 
delight in fine intellectual achievement, the scrutiny of 
fundamental truth, that mark the compatriots of Dante. 
And the service of the interpreter is even more necessary 
in this case, for Italy, past and present, is still unduly un- 
familiar to our countrymen. 

" The greatest immediate values of the study of Spanish 
seem to lie in the possibility of developing an intelligent 
acquaintance and a sound mutual respect between the 
Spanish-speaking republics and our own." ^ 

A service cooperative between French homes and 

1 Circular Note " To Teachers of the Romance Languages in 
the United States of America." Page 1. 



186 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

schools and American institutions was found in a 
delegation of French girls assigned to American col- 
leges. Through the Association of American Col- 
leges, it was arranged for about one hundred and 
fifty French girls to become American students. In 
advance of their departing from their own shores, 
they had accepted a grant of free scholarships, — in- 
struction, board and rooms, — in some seventy-five 
institutions. Of this method of international coop- 
eration, Professor Cestre, Exchange Professor in 
Harvard University, has said: 

" Nothing can touch the heart of the French nation more 
deeply than the steps taken by the Association of Ameri- 
can Colleges to open scholarships in American Girls' Col- 
leges to one hundred French women students. There is 
such warm-heartedness in the offer that the French will 
see in it one of the readiest and most significant proofs 
of America's friendship toward France. Such sanguine 
response of a whole country's feeling to the behavior of 
another country was never recorded in history. Indeed, 
there is something changed in the world when for the old- 
time indifference or aloofness between nations one sees 
substituted such enthusiastic loving-kindness as thus man- 
ifested by America toward France. A firm and durable 
basis for international amity and peace is definitely 
planted when so noble expressions of idealistic admira- 
tion and so liberal movement of collective generosity are 
possible. I say it emphatically in the name of my coun- 
trymen: as the men of France were rewarded for their 
gacrifice when President Wilson declared that the restora- 



International Relations 187 

tion of Alsace-Lorraine to France was a question of right 
in which the whole world was interested, so the women of 
France are repaid for their unflinching devotion and 
steadfastness under the greatest strain in the history of 
nations by this moving and chivalrous purpose of America. 
" Some of these French girls will be led by their altered 
circumstances, or tempted by the hold this American life 
will lay on them, or induced by the appeal of apostleship, 
to stay in this country as teachers of French in schools 
and colleges. They will be the permanent, living wit- 
nesses of the shameful treatment inflicted by Germany 
on her neighbors, and also the token-bearers and the 
thanks-givers testifying to the generous friendship of 
America and to the undying gratefulness of France. 
They will supply, to some extent, the need of good French 
teachers in this country after the war, preventing (let us 
devoutly hope) the greatest evil which might befall Amer- 
ican education, namely, that the teaching of French, out 
of misplaced, good-natured slackness, should be passed 
over to the Germans, male or female, turned idle by the 
discrediting of German classics by American children. 
How many of such German teachers know French? And 
in what spirit would they interpret la douce France, even 
if they sincerely tried to do justice to her humane civiliza- 
tion and gentle sociability ? " 

It should be added that the high hopes thus enter- 
tained have been realized by the presence of these 
young women in American colleges. They have 
fitted well into the social and academic life. If they 
have received much, they have also given much. 
Their presence has brought a foreign world near to 
the isolated American student. This international 



188 Colleges and Universities in the Oreat War 

transmigration is one of the happiest of the minor ele- 
ments in current international scholastic history. 
The first delegation was followed by a second and 
smaller one, and with equally satisfactory results. 

The international relations took on also the recep- 
tion of educational commissions from Great Britain 
and from France. The most important of these 
commissions was the British University Mission 
which visited American colleges in the autumn of 
1918. Its members represented the older universi- 
ties, the newer universities of the Midlands and the 
University of London. The Chairman was Doctor 
Arthur E. Shipley, Master of Christ's College and 
Vice-chancellor of Cambridge University. He wrote 
soon after the conclusion of the service : — 

" For more than sixty days we went up and down 
this vast country, traveling many thousands of miles 
and seeing so many universities and colleges and so 
many presidents and professors that those amongst us 
who had not hitherto had the privilege of visiting the 
United States formed the idea that all its cities are 
university cities and that all the inhabitants are pro- 
fessors, an idea very awful to contemplate ! " ^ 

The results directly flowing from the presence 

1 " The Voyage of a Vice-Chancellor," by Arthur E. Shipley, 
Master of Christ's College and Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge 
University, England, in Scribner's, March, 1919, page 307. 



International Relations 189 

of this Mission were, if not of commanding im- 
portance, at least informing and inspiring. It was 
proved that there exists a certain fundamental fellow- 
ship between British and American universities. 
Friendliness and cooperation were constant keynotes. 
Through the addresses of the members of the Mis- 
sion and many personal conferences, hundreds of 
students were informed of the opportun^ities for 
graduate study found in England, and be it said the 
members of the Mission became acquainted with the 
activities of the higher education in the new world. 

The impression made by the Mission on Amer- 
ican thought and feeling, in the opinion of American 
educators, was of the highest value. Doctor Capen, 
of the Bureau of Education, said : 

" A result, which ought to be of great benefit to 
American education, is the presentation of the view 
that intellectual achievement cannot properly be 
measured by mechanical devices." ^ 

Professor Kirsopp Lake (Lincoln, '91) now of 
Harvard University wrote, in a similar spirit: 
" Will the powers that be at Oxford remember with 
sufficient vividness that in education, as in other 
things, machinery is less important than the object for 
which it is designed ? " ^ 

1 The American Oxonian, January, 1919, page 2. 

2 Ibid., page 4. 



190 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

Professor Schelling, of the University of Penn- 
sylvania, affirmed : " The war must bring many 
changes, to our universities as elsewhere. If among 
many other things, it shall bring us into closer bonds 
of educational and intellectual union with those who 
speak our tongue, are ruled by laws descended from 
the same laws which govern us, vitalized by the same 
love of liberty and of free institutions which sustain 
us, we can assuredly count these things as momentous 
gains." ^ 

The Chairman of the Mission, Vice-Chancellor 
Shipley, later said : " The American people are de- 
termined to have education, and from experience of 
thirty-two years of America I have come to the con- 
clusion that Americans generally get what they set 
out for. What they mean by education is not in all 
cases clear to themselves. They are apt to be a little 
uncritical and apt to be a little influenced by long 
and uncommon words. Prom Massachusetts to 
Texas and from Minneapolis to Charlottesville we 
have found the same .high hopes of the power of edu- 
cation in developing the best qualities of the young. 

" However, the instructions of the British Govern- 
ment to us were to do what we could to bring the two 
Anglo-Saxon nations together, and the most effec- 
tive way of doing this seems to be by means of the 

ilbid., page 10. 



InievTiaUonal Relations 191 

young. We hope to exchange both persons and ideas. 

"(1) With regard to the persons, we hope that a 
certain number of students will come from Great 
Britain to the United States, just as a limited num- 
ber of American students now come to Great Britain 
under the Rhodes Trustees. With regard to stu- 
dents, and here I may speak for myself, I think that 
we should not exchange students with rare exceptions, 
until they have graduated. It is the young A, B. in 
my opinion who would most benefit by visiting an- 
other country, and I think it is unfortunate to take a 
man away from his own university until he has com- 
pleted his course. (2) I would emphasize the fact 
here that man includes woman. (3) I think the 
students should be selected not by a competitive ex- 
amination but by some such board as used to select 
the Kino; Edward VII German scholars and which 
now selects the members of the Egyptian and Sou- 
danese Government service. (4) The student when 
selected should have absolute liberty of choice as to 
the university or professor he wishes to study at or 
under. He should not be confined, as is the case 
with Rhodes Scholars, to one university." ^ 

The members of the Mission and the professors 
and presidents in American colleges agreed in the 
primary element that the exchange of students and 

ilbid., pages 22-23. 



192 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

of teachers, between the universities of the two 
branches of the English-speaking race, should be 
heartily promoted. For this purpose, all wise and 
proper machinery should be set up. 

Aside from the personalities of this Mission 
and of other commissions, messages of various sorts 
were frequently exchanged between the universities 
of the N"ew and of the Old World which are illustra- 
tive of a most important increase of fellowship. 
The Rector of the University of Athens, for instance, 
addressed the universities of America with reference 
to the damages wrought by the Bulgarians in Eastern 
Macedonia. He wrote: 

" Incendiarism, slavery, wholesale deportations, tor- 
ments and excesses of all sorts, these are the means used by 
the Bulgar — in order to exterminate Hellenism, a be- 
havior worthy of hordes, such as appeared in the darkest 
times of history." 

The students, too, of the colleges of the Yugo-Slavs, 
addressed a letter to their fellow students in the 
United States, in which they said : — 

" All the Yugo-Slavs are convinced that the deadly 
struggle in which they are engaged in conjunction with 
their grand Allies will result in a just and lasting peace, 
and bring them to that which they are justly entitled, 
viz : — the unity and independence of their nation. 

" The Yugo-Slavs are proud to number among their Al- 



International Relations 198 

lies the great American democracy, and we, representing 
the Yugo-Slav students, as well as those fighting in the 
Servian Army as those who are enrolled against their will 
in the armies of the enemy or who are languishing in Ger- 
man or Hungarian prisons, address to you, dear fellow 
students, our cordial and affectionate greetings." ^ 

It is also worthy of note that the nefarious letter 
addressed by the ninety-three professors in the Ger- 
man universities to their colleagues of other na- 
tions, in the first months of the war, awoke the sever- 
est condemnation in American college halls. The 
lack of logic in this communication made a deep 
impression upon both the reason and the heart of 
American teachers. The presumptuousness indi- 
cated in the simple declarations of the infamous doc- 
ument seemed to be one of the surest evidences of 
the subordination of the professorial to the military 
authorities. It was one of the hardest blows ever 
inflicted upon the belief current among American 
teachers, that the German university system stood 
for freedom of teaching. As President Butler of 
Columbia University said : " That appeal was an 
unmixed mass of untruths, and the stain which it 
placed upon the intellectual and moral integrity of 
German scholars and men of science will forever re- 

1 Letter from Central Committee of the Federated Societies 
of Servian, Croatian and Slovene (Yugo-Slav) college students 
in Switzerland. 



194 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

main one of the most deplorable and discouraging 
events of tlie war -which German militarism and 
Prussian autocracy forced upon the peaceful and lib- 
erty-loving nations of the world." ^ 

This letter, after a year following the declaration 
of the armistice, was made the subject of a half -apol- 
ogetic note by several of its signers. It was con- 
fessed that pressure was exerted by the German gov- 
ernment to secure its issue and that professors were 
urged by their colleagues to append their names. 
Both despite and because of thesei confessions, it still 
remains one of the dark and sinister blots on the Ger- 
man university system. 

But this species of unreasonable and impetuous 
propaganda was only a microcosm of the principles 
and methods which German universities and profes- 
sors had been following for more than forty years. 
In the preaching and teaching of the older academic 
and imperial gospel, great professors like Mommsen, 
Droyser, Sybel and Treitschke were far-resounding 
voices and potent personalities. They helped to 
make history as well as to write it. They worked 
both with the chancellories and with the general staif . 
They were apologists for the Ems dispatch. Pro- 
fessor Delbruck pronounced on that dispatch a benedic- 

!• Letter addressed to the rector of the University of Up- 
sala by Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia Uni- 
versity, April 15, 1919, page 3. 



International Relations 195 

tion — " Blessed be the hand that traced those lines." 
They represented the height and depth of Chauvin- 
ism. From his chair in the University of Berlin 
Treitschke spoke not only to the thousands of vigor- 
ous, virile and volatile students, but also through 
them to the whole German people. He was an apt 
pupil of the great Frederick's teaching. A world 
dominion won by military power was the compre- 
hensive and consummate text. Such was the foreign 
and home Gospel which was designed to unite and to 
Prussianize all Germany. The voice was indeed the 
voice of Treitschke, but the Gospel was the Gospel of 
Frederick the Great. The state was the real com- 
mander and personality. That the end justifies the 
means, that the stronger should triumph over the 
weak, that the small nations should yield to the large, 
that material force, and not conscience, rules and 
should rule mankind : — these were among the beati- 
tudes of the academic gospel. The state first made 
the university and then the university helped to 
make the state, — the state universal, omnipotent, 
omnipresent. 

Among the unique and the more important of in- 
ternational relations was that foundation which be- 
came known as the American University Union. 
Established in Paris in the midsummer of 1917, it 
had for its purpose, " To meet the needs of American 



196 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

university and college men and their friends who 
were in Europe for military or other service in the 
cause of the Allies." Its more specific purpose was : 

"1. To provide at moderate cost a home with the 
privilege of a simple club for American college men 
and their friends passing through Paris or on fur- 
lough : the privilege to include information bureau, 
writing and newspaper room, library, dining-room, 
bed-rooms, baths, social features, opportunites for 
physical recreation, entertainments, medical advice, 
etc. 

" 2. To provide a headquarters for the various 
bureaus already established or to be established in 
France by representative American universities, col- 
leges and technical schools. 

"3. To cooperate with these bureaus when estab- 
lished, and in their absence to aid institutions, pa- 
rents, or friends, in securing information about col- 
lege men in all forms of war service, reporting on 
casualties, visiting the sick and wounded, giving ad- 
vice, serving as a means of communication with them, 
etc." 

About one hundred and fifty American colleges 
were formally enrolled; and no less than thirty- 
five thousand men registered at its offices.. Its head- 
quarters was established in the Royal Palace Hotel. 
Branches were afterwards opened in London and in 



International Relatiorvs 197 

Rome. The Union proved to be not only a social 
club, but also an organization for war relief. It 
served as an important bond of union between the 
United States and the Allies. Its usefulness did 
not cease with the ending of hostilities. It is still, 
under somewhat changed conditions, serving the col- 
lege men of the United States residing abroad. 

Of the international academic activities and rela- 
tions of the American Expeditionary Forces the 
American University in France was perhaps the 
first in importance as it was the last in time. This 
educational service was at its beginning under the 
charge of the Young Men's Christian Association. 
It had for its special executives, Professor John Er- 
skine of Columbia University, Dr. Frank E. Spauld- 
ing. Superintendent of the Cleveland public schools, 
and Dr. Kenyon L. Butterfield, President of the Mas- 
sachusetts Agricultural College. It was a foundation 
designed to give a higher education to American sol- 
diers, serving in France who had been made free 
from certain military duties. It was placed in 
Beaune, Cote d'Or. One reason for the choice of 
this location lay in the fact that hospital buildings, 
already erected, were unoccupied, and were sufficient 
to serve some eight thousand students and teachers. 
The University was administered by military au- 
thority, Colonel Ira L. Reeves, formerly President 



198 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

of ]Srorwicli University, Vermont, being made presi- 
dent. 

The University was composed of as many and as 
different departments as a College of Agriculture, a 
College of Arts, a College of Business, a College of 
Education, a College of Engineering, a College of 
Journalism, a College of Law, a College of Letters, 
a College of the Medical Sciences, a College of Music, 
a College of Science, an Art Training Center at Bel- 
levue, the Farm School of Allerey, and the Division 
and Post Schools at Beaune. 

The teachers, numbering about one thousand, were 
drawn from the army and from the list of civilians, 
and were usually graduates of American schools and 
universities. The courses of instruction offered were 
those usually found in American academic curricula. 

The students were likewise of diverse origins. 
They represented the usual scholastic training re- 
quired for admission to the Freshman year of the or- 
dinary college. IsTot a few of them had already been 
college students. They numbered about ten thou- 
sand, and the number credited to each state ran from 
seven — who claimed JSTevada as their place of resi- 
dence — to seven hundred seventy-one — who came 
from Pennsylvania. Seven hundred sixty-six were 
from the state of ISTew York, and seven hundred and 
twelve from Illinois. The State of Ohio contributed 



International Belations 199 

four hundred eighty men, Texas four hundred fifty- 
two, Michigan three hundred fifty-nine, Minnesota 
three hundred forty-nine, Indiana three hundred sev- 
enty-seven, every state in the Union being represented. 

The Farm School at AUerey proved to be the most 
attractive, in which twenty-three hundred were en- 
rolled, although in the more formal School of Agri- 
culture, about seven hundred were registered. Fol- 
lowing closely the Farm School was the College of 
Business, in which a number slightly below two 
thousand were matriculated. The College of Let- 
ters registered about a thousand, the College of Sci- 
ences, six hundred forty, the College of Engineering, 
six hundred sixteen, the College of Law, one hundred 
fifty-nine, and the College of Journalism, one hun- 
dred thirty-eight. 

Dr. Kenyon L. Butterfield, an Educational Di- 
rector, has written, regarding the worth of this 
service : — ■ 

" I am satisfied that its work was of very great 
value indeed. It had to be built hurriedly; it had 
to utilize material at hand ; it had to adapt itself to 
unusual and changing conditions — but it ' worked.' 
Men were reached intellectually and spiritually. 
Technical information, knowledge of foreign condi- 
tions and languages, and great incentives were flower 
and fruit of the educational effort. It was all very 



200 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

much worth while, and particularly because it was 
being done for American young men. It was a joy 
to work with them, to see them at close range, to real- 
ize their capacity for leadership." ^ 

Significant details of the work of American stu- 
dents at Beaune and in the universities of France 
have been given me by another member of the Edu- 
cational Commission, Dr. Frank E. Spaulding. He 
has said : — 

"... I think the most significant and the most 
valuable part of the result of this work in the French 
universities will be found not in what was actually 
learned in the classroom, not in the results which we 
look for in the classroom, although they were indeed 
very considerable and significant, but the most val- 
uable result will indeed be found in the association 
of these intelligent, educated, chosen, selected young 
men, with the French students and with the people of 
the French communities where these universities 
were located. Without exception, the citizens of 
these French university towns gave great thought and 
constant care to make the life of our American stu- 
dents pleasant and agreeable and profitable. . . . 

" As was to be expected, the American students de- 
veloped very quickly many of the characteristic ac- 

'i- School Life (Department of the Interior), September 1st, 
1919. 



International Relations 201 

tivities of the American university and college. I 
think that, without exception, every group of Amer- 
ican students at once began to issue some kind of col- 
lege paper. In two or three instances, at least, they 
entered into an arrangement with some local paper 
whereby they published one edition a week at least, 
in cooperation with the local authorities. For in- 
stance, the first paper of that kind that I recall see- 
ing was published at the University of Montpelier. 
In fact most of the four-page sheet was American — 
one side entirely, which was the front page — the re- 
verse was French, also a front page. There was a 
similar publication at Dijon. I presume there may 
have been others, with the characteristic types of 
American journalism, including advertising and 
everything else. Such things as that entered into the 
spirit in which they did anything. It was, I think, 
of great value and made a lasting impression both on 
the American students and the French people con- 
cerned. There was also a system of personal ex- 
changes among these men. Each American student 
was yoked up with some French student for the sake 
of the language, and intimate intercourse and asso- 
ciation." 

American soldier students, moreover, to the num- 
ber of more than two thousand, were also enrolled in 
the universities of England, Scotland, Wales and 



202 Colleges and Universities in the Oreat War 

Ireland. They came from each of the states, Penn- 
sylvania furnishing the largest number, one hundred 
aeventy-six ; ISTew York, one hundred fifty-nine ; Illi- 
nois, one hundred twenty-six; and Ohio, one hun- 
dred twenty-four. In more than three hundred 
American colleges, these men had previously been 
enrolled. Though they were scattered in a dozen 
different universities, the Student Detachment main- 
tained a good degree of unified academic life. In- 
ter-university visits, correspondence, and, in partic- 
ular, a journal, " The American Soldier Student," 
served to join together these men in a foreign land. 
The paper, quite similar to the weekly paper pub- 
lished in hundreds of American colleges, in its num- 
ber of June 25th, 1918, summed up the impressions, 
of three or more months, of British education: — 

" ]N"o academic world," it is stated, " ever flung 
open its doors with greater hospitality than did this 
island one. . . . The great outstanding fact is that, 
in spite of the effects of the war upon faculty and 
fabric, the British institutions absorbed over two 
thousand American students as well as great numbers 
of Colonials in the third term of the academic year, 
and did it in a manner that will make it stand 
long as a high-water mark of academic hospitality. 
. . . But we did not confine our studies to books, 
or our steps to the limits of our college. Even before 



Iniemaiiondl Relations 203 

we had time to explore our college town we were 
sought out by friends of the Entente, and civilian 
hospitality vied with the academic. ... To a greater 
or less extent all of us availed ourselves of the count- 
less opportunities afforded to enter into the life of 
our respective communities. We were not put off 
with one or two large formal affairs, we were taken 
into the home, and we were made to feel at home. 
Soon we began to go further afield. We made the 
whole kingdom our campus. We were scattered 
from Cambridge to Galway, and Bristol to Aberdeen ; 
in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Most all 
of us visited the other fellow's diggings, and took in 
every place of interest on the way. IsTever perhaps 
in the history of the world has a body of students 
traveled so much in a limited period of time as we 
did. We made the so-called ' wandering students ' 
of the Middle Ages look like hermits. Stratford-on- 
Avon, Loch Lomond, the Wye Valley, Blarney, and 
the Lakes of Killarney ; is there any one who has not 
visited most if not all of these ? And these are only 
the beginning of a long list which takes us to every 
corner of the two main islands and to some of the 
smaller ones. We were to be found in the tin, coal, 
and iron mines in Cornwall, Wales, and the Mid- 
lands; in the great textile, and iron and steel indus- 
tries of Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, and Birming- 



204 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

ham; in the shipyards on the Clyde; at the stock 
farms in Scotland, and on Jersey and Guernsey, — 
but the list is endless. We met all kinds of people, 
rich and poor, educated and uneducated, and every- 
where we were welcomed with a warmth such as we 
would give our own. Most of us have told one an- 
other that we have learned a lot and unlearned a lot 
more about the British. We have learned that they 
and we have fundamentally the same outlook on life, 
the same aims and the same ideals. Altogether we 
found them much more like ourselves than we had 
thought. This suggests a way in which we can do a 
little to show our appreciation of a hospitality that 
we cannot repay. N^ow that we have had our earlier 
impressions of the British modified and rectified, let 
every one of us see to it that those with whom we 
come in contact at home benefit by our experiences 
here." 

The final word was a word of duty and of quicken- 
ing for themselves returning to their homes and their 
colleges. 

" Returning to our homes in all corners of the 
Union, we can be a power in the realm of Anglo- 
American relationships if we help our neighbors to 
see and understand the British people as we do now. 
If we do this, the interesting educational experiment 
we are now completing will have proved to be a sue- 



International Relatione 205 

cess, even if not a single one of us ever ' cracked a 
book.' " 1 

Apparently the impression which was made by the 
American students at Oxford was in turn pleasant 
and grateful. They entered with earnestness into all 
sides of the Oxford life, teaching, athletic, personal. 
They seemed rather more eager to know the teachers 
than to know the subjects taught. The courses they 
took represented variety rather than consistency, and 
these courses were determined largely by the interest 
which the lecturer, or teacher, himself awakened. 
Oxford idling — be it ever so profitable — appar- 
ently had less attractiveness for them than it has 
for the regular Oxford man. Out of the condition, 
every student apparently, by his own confession, re- 
ceived a good deal of intellectual quickening. This 
quickening was in no small part colored by a personal 
relationship, a relationship which, by the testimony 
of Oxford dons, was pleasant to them also. 

In numbers of slight, but in significance, of great, 

value is a fact connected with the American Rhodes 

Scholars of Oxford. Since the inauguration of this 

symbol of English speaking fellowship in 1904 four 

hundred men have gone from the American states 

and colleges to Oxford. Of this number about three 

1 The American Student Soldier, No. 7, June 25, 1919. 
Published in London by the Student Detachment of the U. S. 
Army in Great Britain, 



206 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

hundred were enrolled in the service, and twelve of 
this number died. 

In the international relationships of the American 
college, it is never to be forgotten that, after all, schol- 
arship is one of the comprehensive and enduring 
bonds of internationalism. An American teacher, 
Professor William Henry Hulme of Western Reserve 
University in an address, given to the Modern Lan- 
guage Association of America, in the year 1916 
said: 

" In a practical way, scholarship has performed 
wonders in the matter of drawing nations closer to- 
gether during the last one hundred years. The 
studies of history, philology, philosophy and science 
have in that time all ceased to be national — have 
become international. How much have history and 
philology done, working along ethnical, anthropologi- 
cal lines, to familiarize people everywhere with the 
close kinship of nations in language, laws, political 
and social institutions, as well as in racial qualities, 
character, and temperament! And the sciences of 
biology and geology have revealed the marvelous 
unity and harmony that exists among all the crea- 
tures and objects of animate and inanimate nature. 
The names of many of the famous scholars of the past 
have become in the international sense household 
words. The Grimm brothers not only created the 



International Relations 207 

science of comparative grammar, but they opened a 
great new world of folk-lore and fable, in which mil- 
lions and millions of children from every part of the 
story-loving universe have dreamed and reveled for 
almost a century and will continue to do so to the 
end of time. The study of ancient and mediseval 
mythology from the comparative point of view has 
under the guidance of such scholars as Miillendorf, 
Meyer, and Bugge laid students in every part of the 
world under the greatest obligations. The debt of 
the world to the epoch-making discoveries in the field 
of science which Charles Darwin made and described 
is incalculable. The names and fame of those inspir- 
ing teachers and eminent scholars, Paul Meyer and 
Gaston Paris, have reached and helped students of 
mediseval literature in every corner of the globe." ^ 

The personal international relation, — and after all 
the personal is more important than the literary, — is 
well intimated in a tribute paid to the oldest Ameri- 
can college by a patient in the 22nd General Hos- 
pital of France. The oldest American college pro- 
vided supplies to the sisters and doctors of that hos- 
pital. 

1 The chairman's address delivered December 27, 1916, at 
Chicago, Illinois, at the twenty-second annual meeting of the 
Central Division of the Modern Language Association of Amer- 
ica, by William Henry Hulme — entitled " Scholarship as a 
Bond of International Union," pages xciv and xcv. 



208 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

A kindly word, 

A gentle touch, 
Little things 

That mean so much. 



Laughter, bright 

As cheery lays, 
Chasing gloom 

On dreary days. 

A pleasant smile 

As she goes by. 
Can you really 

Wonder why? 

The boys all love 

The Sisters, who 
So help a fellow 

When he feels "blue." 

Buck him up 

In spite of pain, 
Make him feel 

A man again. 

Harvard ! 'Twas 

A splendid deed 
When you supplied 

A vital need. 

And sent us aid 

To " carry on," 
Promising more 

Till wars are won. 



International Relations 209 

A noble work 

For a worthy end, 
England thanks you, 

Harvard — Friend.^ 

lA Noble Work by Gilbert Ridge — Harvard Alumni Bul- 
letin, 1918, page 247. 



XIII 



THE FALLElN 



On that last great day of the war, the day of the 
celebration of victory in Paris, the 14th of July, 
1919, which was also Bastille Day, a large, deep cas- 
ket was placed beneath the Arch of Triumph. It 
was in commemoration of the fallen. On the surface 
was an austere figure of winged Victory bearing a 
palm branch. By day and by night a noble guard 
of honor watched the memorial. Past its side there 
filed for hours out of the great line of march, a 
procession of those families who had lost a member. 
These mourners clothed in black might possibly have 
seemed to see lying at the bottom of the casket, the 
face of husband, son, brother. Each family that had 
made the supreme sacrifice of a member was allowed 
to throw into the cenotaph a single flower. Soon the 
huge casket was filled with memorial blossoms. 
Prance gave up more than a million and three hun- 
dred thousand of her sons in the consummate strug- 
gle. 

By the last summary the United States had given 
210 



Th& Fallen 211 

up less than eighty thousand. The figures on July 

14th, 1919, were as follows: ^ 

Previously Reported 

Reported July 14th Total 

Killed in action 33,901 7 33,908 

Lost at sea 734 . . 734 

Died of wounds 13,618 16 13,634 

Died of accident 23,479 25 23,504 

Died of disease 5,090 14 5,104 

76,822 76,884 

Of these numbers less than ten per cent, were col- 
lege men. Although the casualty list will increase 
for years to come, yet, it is safe to say that about six 
thousand, five hundred of the hundred and seventy 
thousand of college men who enlisted died in the 
service. 

The list that follows includes teachers, graduates, 
and former students. It does not include, be it said, 
the members of the Students' Army Training Corps. 
The percentage, therefore, of those who have lost 
their lives in the service is about four. This per- 
centage is practically identical with the percentage 
of the men who fell, who were members of the Ex- 
peditionary Force. 

The tables which follow are composed of reports 
made in most cases from statements furnished by the 
institutions themselves. ISTecessarily they are imper- 
iThe New York Times, July 14th, 1919. 



212 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

feet. Every week changes the facts. Men will con- 
tinue to die from the eifect of the war for years to 
come. Reports, too, of men who died months or 
even years ago are delayed in reaching their colleges. 
But the statements are the fullest that can now be 
offered, and substantially the changes to be made in 
them in the future will not fundamentally alter the 
present compilations. 

Died of 
State Wounds 

Alabama 5 

Arizona 5 

Arkansas 4 

California 34 

Colorado 31 

Connecticut 98 

Delaware 

District of Columbia 18 

Georgia 43 

Idaho 11 

Illinois 88 

Indiana 40 

Iowa 55 

Kansas 27 

Kentucky 18 

Louisiana 7 

Maine 28 

Maryland 25 

Massachusetts 87 

Michigan 31 

Minnesota 52 

Mississippi 5 

Missouri 41 



Died of 


Total (from 


Diseases 


all causes) 


10 


45 


5 


10 


13 


18 


39 


245 


35 


69 


70 


458 


4 


8 


22 


41 


27 


77 


19 


33 


102 


319 


77 


270 


100 


163 


31 


174 


7 


42 


16 


27 


31 


64 


18 


51 


107 


601 


24 


284 


38 


106 


4 


16 


26 


78 



The Fallen 213 

Died of Died of Total (from 

State Wounds Diseases all causes) 

Montana 8 10 19 

Nebraska 43 43 99 

Nevada 3 8 13 

New Hampshire 24 35 82 

New Jersey 92 53 169 

New Mexico 1 5 6 

New York 199 172 632 

North Carolina 33 11 61 

North Dakota 12 9 22 

Ohio 73 112 231 

Oklahoma 2 18 

Oregon 23 50 93 

Pennsylvania 77 94 191 

Ehode Island 21 21 51 

South Carolina 2 7 9 

South Dakota 14 22 50 

Tennessee 23 22 50 

Texas 57 37 101 

Vermont 14 12 30 

Virginia 57 76 150 

Washington 27 43 80 

West Virginia 4 10 18 

Wisconsin 27 25 56 

Wyoming 4 5 9 



5,419 



These facts are most significant. They enlighten 
the understanding as well as move the heart. But the 
comparative relation of the number of the fallen to 
the number of the enlisted becomes mightily more sig- 
nificant. Let me give some examples : 

ISTew York University, from all its departments, 



214 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

gave 1,476 men, graduates and students, of whom. 36 
died, or 2.4 per cent. 

The University of Rochester enrolled 653 gradu- 
ates and students in the service, of whom 11 died, or 
1.68 per cent. 

Columbia University sent between 8,000 and 9,000 
into the service, of whom 188, or more, did not re- 
turn, or 2.08 per cent. 

Syracuse University gave 2,400 to the service, of 
whom 90 died, or 3.8 per cent. 

Union University, from its undergraduate depart- 
ment, enrolled 876, graduates and students, in the 
service, of whom 26 died, or 3.08 per cent. 

Hamilton College sent 761 into the service, of 
whom 13 did not return, or 1.7 per cent. 

Fordham University, from its undergraduate de- 
partment graduates and students, gave 493, and 
from its professional departments, 1001, of whom 60' 
did not return, or 4 per cent. 

Williams College sent 2,229 into the service, of 
whom 49 did not return, or 2.2 per cent. 

Massachusetts Agricultural College gave 1,330 to 
the service, of whom 50 died, or 3.75 per cent. 

Worcester Polytechnic Institute sent 673 into the 
service, of whom 16 died, or 2.38 per cent. 

Harvard University sent 9,009 men into the serv- 
ice, of whom 322 died, or 3.6 per cent. 



The Fallen 216 

Lafayette College enrolled 1,056 men, graduates 
and students, and 9 faculty members, in the service, 
of whom 32 did not return, or 3.09 per cent. 

Pennsylvania College (not University) sent 285 
into the service, of whom 12 died, or 4.2 per cent. 

The University of Pittsburgh, from its under- 
graduate and professional departments, enrolled 
2,559, graduates and students, and from its faculty 
members, 167, of whom 63 have fallen, or 2.3 per 
cent. 

Swarthmore College, from its undergraduate de- 
partment, sent 286 graduates and students into the 
service, of whom 3 died, or 1 per cent. 

Dickinson College, from both its undergraduate de- 
partment and professional classes sent out 558 gradu- 
ates and students, of whom 16 died, or 2.85 per 
cent. 

Franklin and Marshall College, from its gradu- 
ates and students enrolled 345 men, of whom 13 died, 
or 3.8 per cent. 

Ohio Wesleyan University, from its undergrad- 
uate department, sent 460 graduates and students 
into the service, of whom 16 have fallen, or 3.5 per 
cent. 

Miami University, from its undergraduate depart- 
ment, gave 5Y5 to the service, of whom 7 died, or 
1.2 per cent. 



216 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

Trinity College (Connecticut), from its under- 
graduate department, gave 523 graduates and stu- 
dents to the service, of whom 20 died, or 3.8 per cent. 

Wesleyan University (Connecticut), sent 1,291 
men into the service, of whom 27 have fallen, or 2.1 
per cent. 

Yale University, from its graduates and students, 
sent 7,000 into the service, of whom 220 died, or 3.1 
per cent. 

Princeton University, from all departments, en- 
rolled 6,050, graduates and students, in the service, 
of whom 147 did not return, or 2.4 per cent. 

Rutgers College gave 854 to the service, of whom 
23 did not return, or 2.7 per cent. 

Johns Hopkins University, from all its depart- 
ments, sent 1,255 into the service, of whom 24 died, 
or 1.9 per cent. 

St. John's College (Maryland) enrolled 400, of 
whom 24 made the supreme sacrifice, or 6 per cent. 

The University of Michigan gave over 10,000, 
graduates and students, from its undergraduate and 
professional departments, and 200 from its faculties, 
of whom 222 did not return, or 2.2 per cent. 

Michigan Agricultural College, from its under- 
graduate department, enrolled 730 graduates and 
students, of whom 25 did not return, or 3.4 per cent. 



The Fallen 217 

Kalamazoo College gave 212 men to the service, of 
whom 9 died, or 4.2 per cent. 

Alma College enrolled 177 in the service, of whom 
9 did not return, or 5.08 per cent. 

Hope College enrolled 120 in the service, of whom 
1 died, or .8 per cent. 

The University of Illinois gave 4,993 graduates 
and students to the service, of whom 167 died, or 
3.34 per cent. 

Illinois Wesleyan University, from its undergrad- 
uate department gave 91, and from its professional 
departments gave 80, graduates and students, to the 
service, of whom 11 died, or 6.4 per cent. 

Lake Forest College, from its undergraduate de- 
partment, sent 115 graduates and students into the 
service, of whom 1 did not return, or .8 per cent. 

Dartmouth College, from its undergraduate de- 
partment gave about 1,200 graduates and students 
to the service, of whom 90 did not return, or 7.5 per 
cent. 

Rhode Island State College, from its undergrad- 
uate department, enrolled 146, of whom 8 died, or 
5.5 per cent. 

Brown University sent 2,048 into the service, of 
whom 42 did not return, or 2 per cent. 

Purdue University, from its undergraduate de- 



218 Colleges and Universities in the Oreat War 

partment, gave 2,639 graduates and students to the 
service, of whom 54 did not return, or 2 per cent. 

Leland Stanford Jr. University, from its under- 
graduate department, gave 1,300 graduates and stu- 
dents to the service, of whom 59 died, or 4.5 per cent. 

The University of California, from all its depart- 
ments, enrolled 4,037 graduates and students, and 
from its faculties, 121, in the service, of whom 98 
did not return, or 2.35 per cent. 

St. Louis University, from its undergraduate de- 
partment, enrolled 1,330, from its professional de- 
partments, 1,170, and from its faculty members, 77, 
of whom 39 did not return, or 1.5 per cent. 

Lawrence College, from its undergraduate depart- 
ment enrolled 305 members, graduates and students, 
in the service, of whom 11 died, or 3.6 per cent. 

The University of Washington, including members 
from the undergraduate and professional depart- 
ments, graduates and students, and from the faculty, 
enrolled 2,238 in the service, of whom 37 did not re- 
turn, or 2.6 per cent. 

The University of Virginia, including undergrad- 
uate and professional departments, enrolled 2,875 in 
the service, of whom GQ died, or 2.3 per cent. 

risk University (colored), from all its depart- 
ments, gave 145 to the service, of whom 7 did not re- 
turn, or 4.55 per cent. 



The Fallen 219 

The University of Georgia, from all its depart- 
ments, gave 1,693 to the service, of whom 42 died, or 
2.5 per cent. 

Bowdoin College, from its undergraduate and med- 
ical departments, enrolled 1,215 in the service, of 
whom 29 did not return, or 2.4 per cent. 

The University of !North Dakota, from its under- 
graduate department and professional departments, 
gave 826 graduates and students, and from its fac- 
ulties, 35, of whom 33 died, or 3.8 per cent. 

These records and proportions are both significant 
and moving; and possibly more moving to the heart 
than to the mind. For, one ever remembers, in ten- 
derness and gratitude, as President Faunce, of Brown 
University, has said in reference to the fallen of his 
own University: 

" These young men were dear to their own house- 
holds, but hardly less dear to Alma Mater. Some of 
them were leaders on the campus in former days. 
They sang the old songs and played the old games and 
dreamed of a long, bright future. Sooner than any 
thought have their dreams come true. Their faces 
vanish, but their souls are marching on. 

" ' Taps ' has sounded for them ; ' reveille ' for us. 
Heaven helping us, we will be worthy of our unseen 
comrades." ^ 

1 " Brown University in the War," page 16. 



220 Colleges and Universities in the Or eat War 

Upon the fallen and upon the survivors, many hon- 
ors and decorations were bestowed. The record for 
the University of California is representative : — 

" Six countries awarded decorations to Calif orni- 
ans who served in various capacities and places dur- 
ing the war. Fourteen of these men were recipients 
of two decorations ; one received three. 

" The most prized decoration, the Distinguished 
Service Cross, awarded for conspicuous bravery, was 
given to eleven men. Three others received the Dis- 
tinguished Service Medal, given for highly valuable 
services. 

" Other decorations and honors awarded are : — 
France; Legion of Honor, 7; Croix de Guerre, 36; 
Medaille Sante, 1 : Belgium ; Order of the Crown, 9 ; 
Order of the Cross, 5 : British decorations, 3 : Italian 
decorations, 5 : Servian, 1." ^ 

If one were to attempt to make mention of special 
cases of bravery, these pages would become too nu- 
merous. And yet I cannot refrain from quoting cer- 
tain instances which, precious and moving in them- 
selves, are still only illustrative. 

A. member of the Class of 1915 in the University 
of California was awarded the Croix de Guerre and 
D. S. C. " for extraordinary heroism in action near 

1 From " The University of California Honor KoU," page 14. 



The Fallen 221 

the Meuse River. When the company on his left 
was checked by heavy machine gun fire he led a pla- 
toon forward and surrounded a large number of the 
enemy, capturing 155 prisoners and seventeen ma- 
chine guns. Pushing on, he took the town of Mim 
St. Georges and many machine gun positions. Al- 
though painfully wounded he refused to be evacuated 
and remained with his men for two days until he was 
ordered to the rear." 

Another member, of the class of 1916, was cited 
" for bravery and coolheadedness in bringing his 
plane safely to earth after it had caught fire at 3,000 
m, altitude and making a good landing in a strange 
field and extinguishing the fire without help." 

A member of the following class was awarded D. 
S. C. " for displaying conspicuous leadership. He 
led his platoon against an enemy battery while it was 
in action. Through his skillful maneuvering forty- 
two prisoners, ten pieces of artillery and five machine 
guns were captured." 

A member of the class of 1918 was awarded the 
Croix de Guerre with palms by France at the battle 
of the Meuse, " for extraordinary heroism in ac- 
tion." He " displayed the highest qualities of cour- 
age and leadership in leading his platoon through to 
its objective under a heavy barrage of machine-gun 



222 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

and artillery fire without flank support. He held his 
objective under murderous artillery and machine-gun 
fire until relieved." ^ 

The percentage of American college men who 
gave up their lives in the Civil War is much 
larger than the proportion of those who made the 
great sacrifice in the present. In round numbers, 
Harvard sent 9,000 into the war, of whom about 
322 died, or 3.6 per cent. To the Civil War 
she gave 1,232 men, of whom 138 died, or 11.2 per 
cent. To the Civil War also, Yale sent 832 men into 
the J^orthem service, of whom 100 died, or 12 per 
cent. Of the colleges of the South sending men into 
the Civil War, the University of Virginia and the 
University of ISTorth Carolina stand forth preemi- 
nent. ISTo less than 200 students of the University 
of Virginia gave up their lives defending their State. 
Of the University of ITorth Carolina, 312 died, which 
was about 40 per cent, of the graduates for the forty 
years preceding the attack on Et, Sumter. It would 
probably be fair to say that the percentage of the 
number of college students, graduates and teachers 
losing their lives in the Civil War was four times 
greater than the percentage of the number losing their 
lives in the World War. 

Of course, the reason is not far to seek. The Civil 

1 Ibid., pages 15-16. 



The Fallen 223 

War occupied four years. The Civil War made a 
more mighty appeal to the colleges of the I^orth than 
did the present war, and the appeal made to the col- 
leges of the South in the great civil struggle was of 
incomparable intensity. 

Inspiring and thrilling as was the record made by 
American college men in the present war, it was yet 
not so great as that made by the colleges of the Allies. 
The universities of Canada sent forth a far greater 
proportion of their sons than did the colleges and uni- 
versities of the nation south of the line. The Uni- 
versity of Toronto, for instance, contributed about 
6,400 men from students' bench and professors' chair, 
of whom 604 gave up their lives, or somewhat more 
than 10 per cent. McGill University, at Montreal, 
offered a like record. 

The entrance of the graduates and undergraduates 
of the English universities was at least as moving as 
the enlistment of the American college men. The 
English came into the war earlier by almost three 
years ; and the war to them meant a richer sacrifice, 
almost as much more sacrificial as the English Cam- 
bridge is nearer to the Mame than is the American 
city on the Charles. The great human motives, how- 
ever, were alike, influencing and inspiring both bodies 
of academic youth. The conditions of simplicity, of 
quietness, of naturalness, of high resolve, of spiritual 



224 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

exultation, and of honor mark both sets of students. 
A sense of humanity, of patriotism, and the instinct 
of doing one's duty were alike present. As with a 
garment, that Anglo-Saxon sense of duty clothed the 
American student and the English. ISTelson's call 
has entered the academic cloister. Of this condi- 
tion no worthier interpreter could be found than the 
Master of Magdalene at Cambridge, who writing of 
the enrollment of Cambridge men said : 

" What I would make clear, above everything, is 
the extreme simplicity of it all. It is just the steady 
setting of a great current of emotion in one direction. 
It is not a question of argument or motive or excite- 
ment, or even of indignation; it is not even a con- 
scious sense of duty or honor. It is something 
stronger and finer than all these, a passion of citizen- 
ship and humanity, which, so far from growing dim 
and faint in long peace and prosperity, seems to 
have been nurtured into a freshness and spontaneity 
which no imagination could have foreseen. English- 
men are often accused of individualism and an almost 
fantastic personal independence ; it is all true, so far 
as the smaller things of life are concerned. But the 
war has revealed that when once a national need 
stands out, there is no sacrifice, no endurance, no loss 
which the Englishman is not prepared to face; and 
not to persuade himself into it, or to trample upon 



The Fallen 225 

one part of his nature, but to mingle with the stream, 
to flow with it, and to find in this prodigious unity 
the satisfaction of his best hopes and desires." ^ 

In a similar spirit. Sir Herbert Warren, the Presi- 
dent of Magdalen, Oxford, wrote: 

" ISTo city in England is more changed by the War 
than Oxford. ISTone speaks its effect more elo- 
quently than this fair, mournful witness. It is with 
the eloquence of her sad, mute self, but the . figures 
given below of the Oxford ' Roll of Service ' are also 
eloquent. Eleven thousand old Oxford men have 
passed into the service of their country. Over 1,400 
have already fallen; 100 more are missing — 1,500 
in all, among them many of the best scholars, the fin- 
est athletes, the leaders of their years. But this does 
not bring home the absolute devastation and desola- 
tion of what may be called actual living Oxford as she 
was before the War. There should be well over 
3,000 undergraduates at this moment in residence. 
In June, 1914, every college was full to overflow- 
ing. Step into any one to-day ! If it is full at all, 
it is full of young soldiers in khaki ! When they are 
out it is empty. The remnant of undergraduates, 
the invalid, the crippled, the neutrals, make abso- 

1 Article by Dr. Arthur C. Benson, Master of Magdalene, 
Cambridge University — British Universities and the War — 
page 9. 



226 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

lutely no show at all. They can hardly be discov- 
ered. Colleges which before the War contained 150 
now contain half a dozen. Emptiness, silence reign 
everywhere. The younger teachers are gone too." ^ 

A similar record is the history of the Scotch uni- 
versities of St. Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and 
Edinburgh. St. Andrews, the oldest and the small- 
est of the quartette, sent 55 members of its staff en- 
rolled, 498 graduates and former students, and 258 
undergraduates, or a total of 811 into the service. 
Of this number llT fell. 

Glasgow, the second in age gave no less than 3,363 
of students and graduates to the naval and military 
service, of whom no less than 2,650 held commis- 
sions. Of this number, 525 were killed or died of 
their wounds. The number of the missing exceeded 
600. 

A similar report belonged to the University of 
Aberdeen. 2,786 members and alumni were engaged 
in all branches of the service, of which 295 did not 
return. 

The Roll of Honor of the University of Edin- 
burgh was yet more conspicuous, although no more 
worthy. The total enrollment was 5,162, of whom 
649 died. 

1 Article by Sir Herbert Warren, K. C. "V. O., President of 
Magdalen, Oxford University — British Universities and the 
War — 'page 3. 



The Fallen 22Y 

The list of honors that belonged to each of these 
universities is long, distinguished, thrilling. In 
Edinburgh it included 500 names, in Aberdeen, more 
than 300, in St. Andrews more than 100. And in 
Glasgow, more than 600. The Scotch universities, 
always the home of patriotism, have never more glori- 
ously proved their valor. 

The newer Midland universities manifested the 
same spirit of patriotic devotion. The number of the 
students was in some instances reduced to one-fourth 
of the usual enrollment. They especially devoted 
themselves to scientiiic research, and of many kinds. 
Professors of chemistry and of mining, of course, 
made important contributions. Electrical engineers 
were engaged on wireless telegraphy and telephone 
equipment. Pathological professors were busy in 
hospitals. Individual universities made unique of- 
ferings. The coal, gas and fuel industry depart- 
ments of Leeds were assigned to the duty of testing 
high explosives and of analyzing coal tar. The 
leather industry department gave attention to the 
leather equipment of the forces. The engineers 
tested metals in aeroplane spars and gave instruc- 
tion in elementary machine work for munition work- 
ers. The textile industry department examined 
army cloth and aeroplane fabrics. And the color 
chemistry department took an active part in scien- 



228 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

tific researcli respecting the making of dyes. Each 
university of the liidlands mobilized every force for 
the winning of the war. Never was there an experi- 
ence in their history which commandeered so com- 
pletely all faculties and every facility. 

But perhaps a yet more moving presentation is 
found in the contribution made by French students 
and teachers. JSTo less than 259 professors of litera- 
ture, science, medicine and law of the University of 
Paris or of the provincial universities gave up their 
lives, and the number of teachers, schoolmasters and 
professors in the various schools and colleges of 
France, who sacrificed all for their beautiful land 
reaches the great total of 6,000. The University of 
Paris writes 6-35 names on its roll of honor. The 
story of the student patriot and of the patriot student 
touches the depths of the grateful heart. The great- 
ness of the offering becomes the more impressive when 
it is remembered that at the beginning of the year 
1914 the number of students in the French Universi- 
ties was only 42,000. 

The record of the college men in the war of all 
nations is a record which thrills. I would not say it 
is a record more glorious than that of non-college 
men, but it is certainly at least as glorious. Hun- 
dreds of them have been cited for heroism. Each in- 
dividual instance bears its own form of bravery, but 



The Fallen 229 

all are alike in certain great respects. Alike are the 
records in contempt of danger ; alike in the endurance 
of pain ; alike in the force of will overcoming physical 
weakness ; alike in showing poise and calmness when 
the temptation was to lose one's head and one's 
nerves ; alike in risking life to save a comrade ; alike 
in supporting the morale of the line when it was in 
danger of breaking; alike in throwing away leave 
tickets and returning to the charge; alike, when one 
was wounded in leg or thigh, hopping and crawling, 
delivering messages. It was the brain as well as the 
heart and the will that did the duty of the hour and 
of the day. The record belongs alike to the air, to 
the sea, and to the land. It belongs quite as much 
to the wounded who recovered, as to the wounded and 
the dead. It really belongs quite as much and essen- 
tially to the college men who wanted to go overseas 
and over the top, and were not able, as to those who 
did venture and sacrificed all. 

The mood in which all was borne was such as be- 
cometh the gentleman. The college man fought at 
Cambrai and Chateau Thierry, and with determina- 
tion, discrimination, and exultation. He bore his 
wounds in hospital wards with a stoic patience which 
does not belong to impulsive youth. He wore his 
crown of thorns, as one has said, as if it were cap and 
bells. He was at once careless and serious, frivo- 



230 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

lous and religious, living in the full for to-day, and 
not forgetting the forthcoming to-morrow; free from 
hate for his enemy, but determined to punish him for 
all his ill doings, serving his native land, yet remem- 
bering he was a soldier of humanity; true to the 
human brotherhood, yet not forgetting the divine 
Father. 

It is a ghostly procession, too, which the pious im- 
agination beholds. The dead college men go march- 
ing by. It is a motley, young, silent throng. Some 
wear the scholar's gown and the student's cap, some 
the track, and some the rowing, uniform, but all do 
wear the khaki. All are watchful and strong, reso- 
lute and happy. Hope shines on their foreheads. A 
smile breaks on their faces, and a sense of freedom 
swings along in their march. With a lithe step and 
strong stride, they move steadily up their via sacra, 
keeping time to songs which seem half college and 
half patriotic. They have gone west, but their sun 
of remembrance shall never set in the college halls 
where once they walked, and on the walls of which, 
their names, cut in bronze, shall be held in lasting 
love. 

" They gave their manly youth away for country and for 

God." 
" The dead do not die 

Who fall in the cause that angels uphold; 

For the Right will be Right while the stars sail the sky." 



XIV 

THE COMMENCEMENTS OF THE WAR PERIODS 

The three conunencements which fell in the Amer- 
ican war period were each of unique impressiveness. 
They also showed fundamental differences in em- 
phasis as in time. In the commencement of the year 
1917, less than three months after the declaration of 
war, the martial note could be plainly heard, and 
it was heard quite as much in the voice of prophecy 
as of affirmation, quite as much as an expression of 
hope or of fear as of achievement. In the com- 
mencement of 1918 a different spirit prevailed. 
Strength, determination, assurance, the glory of sac- 
rifice, the value of duty, the absolute certainty of 
fighting the war unto victory, were the key-notes of 
address and oration. In the commencement of 1919 
a still further change was seen and heard. Victory 
had been won. America was in tears, and was also 
glad and grateful. 

The commencements of 1918 and of 1919 were 

impressive in the depleted classes that came up for 

their degrees. In one college at least, Hobart, in 

231 



232 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

1918, no commencement was held. In even the 
Civil War period the usual commencement had been 
observed, but in 1918 only three members of the 
senior class remained and barely thirty-five students 
of the whole, though small, enrollment. In 1918i 
Brown University gave only fifty-one degrees to men ; 
Princeton only sixty-five; Yale only three hundred 
to all graduates rather than the usual number of eight 
hundred; Amherst sixty-four; and Harvard eight 
hundred and nineteen of which two hundred and 
forty-seven represented the Bachelor degree. Har- 
vard also gave three hundred and twenty-one certifi- 
cates or qualified degrees to men who had entered the 
military and naval service of the United States or of 
the Allies. In 1919 Dartmouth conferred one hun- 
dred and seventy-five degrees, and thirteen men of 
the class had fallen in the service. Bates, conferred 
one hundred degrees on both men and women, the 
University of Vermont one hundred and seven, also 
on both men and women, Bowdoin sixty-seven and 
several certificates of honor to men who were still in 
the service in France. Cornell in 1919 conferred 
only three hundred and thirty-three degrees, the 
smallest number for many years. 

The academic festivities too witnessed a curtail- 
ment commensurate with the lessened numbers. The 
customary functions were abridged or united. Sim- 



The C ommencemenis of the War Periods 233 

plicity prevailed. Unnecessary expense was avoided. 
Spreads were few and guests also were few. Grad- 
uates' reunions were not lield or were held in a very 
sober manner. Many alumni did not lend themselves 
to festivities in whicli their hearts could not be gay. 
Hilarity lessened. One purpose was to save money 
and to give the money thus saved to the Red Cross 
or other war activities. 

In all festivities formal and informal, however les- 
sened, certain key-notes were struck, in Baccalaureate 
sermon and Presidential address, and in the speeches 
of representative students and alumni. Chief among 
these notes were loyalty to the nation, leadership, 
vision, public service, the uses of victory won or to be 
won, respect for the humanistic classics, faith in the 
future, the world's reconstruction. 'Not imfamiliar 
are such sentiments to commencement audiences, but 
the war being fought or the war having been won, 
gave to these topics peculiar emphasis. Graduation 
offered unique opportunities for their application. 
Occasionally a voice was heard proclaiming that there 
were other causes in the world besides the war, or its 
origin, conduct and results. But these dissentient 
intimations were both few and rather inaudible. 

Mr. Herbert Hoover at the Harvard commence- 
ment of 191Y, having received a degree, said : " The 
Belgian relief was not my labor ; it was the labor o£ 



234 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

two hundred American university men. . . . This 
army of civilians is an army of specialists, and they 
can be officered only by the men from their own ranks 
— from the commercial body of the nation who have 
knowledge and experience in all of the multitvidinous 
branches of their production and labor; and in this 
officership from the industrial ranks is the security of 
democracy. These men must have authority and 
power to act. We give power to direct, and even that 
of life and death over our citizens, to the officers of 
our regular army. These powers have the restraint 
only of law and public opinion. Is it more wrong to 
give the right to direct the use of property to the offi- 
cers of this civilian army, subject also to law and pub- 
lic opinion ? Has this country descended to a level 
of materialism that leads it to force its sons to the 
trenches and to demand immunity for its property? 
If we are to cling to luxury and profit, our sons and 
the sons of the allies will die in vain." ^ At the same 
college the President of the Alumni Association in 
the commencement of the following year. Dr. George 
A. Gordon said : " The war that fills our minds to- 
day is the war of the preservation of humanity. 
Nothing less is at stake than the integrity of the 
jnoral life of the race, the moral fellowship of man- 
1 ff award Alumni Bulletin, page 749 and 750 of 1916-1917. 



The C ommencerrienis of the War Periods 235 

kind, the reality of justice among men and nations, 
the right of all peoples, great and small, to express in 
freedom their individual genius, upon that portion of 
the earth's surface which they call their own; a por- 
tion of the earth made beautiful by family life, the 
mystic influence of an extended ancestry, and the hal- 
lowing power of an immemorial fellowship in toil, in 
joy, and in hope. 

" When faith between man and man, nation and 
nation ceases, faith between man and the Infinite 
ceases or remains only as a withered and sickening 
hypocrisy. The origins of our Christian civilization 
are in a moral league with the Eternal, supported, 
made sincere and availing, by a moral league among 
human beings. Our highest possessions, and our best 
hopes for mankind are the fruit of this double fun- 
damental faith. 

" Here our country claims our utmost homage ; she 
is indeed illustrious in the character that she has won. 
If she had thought meanly of herself she could have 
evaded this war. If she had been willing to make a 
league with death and a covenant with hell, she might 
have added to her wealth and ease. She would not, 
she could not play the role of betrayer to the human- 
ity of man. At her own cost, and for no vulgar gain, 
she has gone forth the soldier of humanity. There- 



236 Colleges and Universities in the Oreai War 

fore, slie stands before the world witli clean hands and 
a pure heart." ^ 

At the commencement of Yale in 1918, President 
Hadley, speaking to the Alumni on What War Had 
Done for Yale, said : " The war has thus far proved 
on the whole a source of strength rather than weak- 
ness to the college. Tor the hrst time m many years 
it has had a dominant motive that it could set before 
its students ; a motive which, in spite of frequent dif- 
ficulties and occasional backslidings, took hold of the 
student body as a whole. 

" We have always spoken of Yale as a place de- 
voted to public service. We have tried to make pub- 
lic service the distinctive idea and purpose of Yale 
education. 'Now for the first time we have been able 
to give this word ' public service ' a concrete mean- 
ing which the students understand. The uniform of 
the Army or ISTavy which they wear is a visible sym- 
bol of the purpose for which they come. The Yale 
student of to-day is no longer here to have a good 
time. He is here to prepare himself for something 
— Army, ISTavy, engineers ; or if disqualified from all 
these, for helping to win the war at home. This 
gives to academic study the zeal and spirit which was 
formerly reserved for professional study. Trigo- 
1 Harvard Alumni Bulletin, page 759 of 1917-1918. 



The Commencements of the War Periods 23 Y 

nometry has a new meaning wlien it serves as a basis 
for practical work in navigation or for firing data. 
Many a man who is unable to appreciate mathematics 
for its own sake becomes surprisingly proficient when 
he finds that it will enable him to hit his enemy at 
three miles' distance. What is true of mathematics is 
true of French and is true of history. Each study 
gains new life when it prepares a man to take part in 
war problems. 

" ISTot only do the students feel that they are en- 
gaged in a work of preparation; they have gone far 
enough to see that they have accomplished something. 
They no longer have to take the word of their instruc- 
tors that the curriculum of the Yale Field Artillery 
School, or the somewhat more elastic course of the 
Yale ISTaval Training Unit, will prepare them for 
service. They have visible signs before them that 
it does prepare them. Seventy line commissions in 
the ISTavy out of seventy-one men sent up by Yale is a 
visible and tangible object lesson to those who stay 
at home as to the direct connection between what they 
do here and what they will be able to do hereafter- 
ward. The readiness of the Government to take all 
our artillerists, of every age, into Government camps 
is perhaps an even clearer object lesson, because it 
comes directly home to each boy, whether he is of 



238 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

draft age or not, and shows liini that the Government 
needs men who understand trigonometry even more 
than men who know the manual of arms." ■'■ 

At the commencement of the University of Mich- 
igan, Dean Keppel of Columbia, serving as Third 
Assistant Secretary of War, said : 

" What have we learned ? In the first place, we 
have learned that as a nation, we possess the power to 
see a big job through, and we possess it because we 
have the qualities of youth — enthusiasm, learning, 
capacity, energy, elasticity, initiative — the pioneer- 
ing spirit. We have the shortcomings of youth also 
■ — impatience, superficiality, improvidence, cock- 
sureness — but when the test came we strengthened 
our virtues and to a large extent overcame our fail- 
ings. 

" In the second place, we have learned that to see 
the job through we need all of the nation, men and 
women, not merely the professional arms and the niys- 
terious powers of finance — we need all of every one. 
We need them not as individuals, but as a team and 
we have learned that we can develop team play. 

" Our easiest jobs were the raising of our men and 
our money; our hardest, the molding of the whole 
into an organic unity. 

" We should never again face a great national 

1 Boston Transcript, June 19tli, 1918. 



The Commencements of the War Periods 239 

crisis with nearly one-tliird of our men of military- 
age unfit for hard physical work. We need cam- 
paigns of physical education and social hygiene, and 
we need to apply the lesson in human salvage which 
the army has learned during the war. 

" In the third place, we have learned that to ac- 
complish a good result, we need the leadership of 
those who know, and who know vividly and construc- 
tively. Our experience has shown that in certain 
fields, finance, science, manufacturing in quantity 
production, welfare work, we had a supply of those 
who knew. In other fields, in intimate knowledge 
of foreign conditions and foreign languages, for ex- 
ample, we had not. At first we didn't know where 
our leaders were, and in many cases we began by fol- 
lowing false prophets. 

" The vital importance of a thorough knowledge of 
where the man we need is to be found can be shown 
by an example: A code message from Germany, di- 
recting the dismantling of the German ships which 
lay in our American ports, was intercepted. If we 
had known that there was a professor of English in 
the University of Chicago, who in the pursuit of his 
mediaeval researches had developed the power of read- 
ing ciphers almost at sight, that cable from Germany 
could have been promptly deciphered, the sabotage 
forestalled, and something like six months in the use 



240 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

of these ships for the transport of troops and muni- 
tions could have been gained. 

" The fourth lesson of which I wish to speak is that 
a high aim and ideal is what counts most of all, and 
what lifts the individual up from selfishness and 
sloth. What bound the country together and made 
the transformation which still seems miraculous, was 
the noble national aim, the complete dedication to the 
task before us, the utter absence of any selfish or self- 
seeking factor in the whole enterprise. The conduct 
of our soldiers, their submission to a discipline to 
which most of them were completely unused was, I 
think, in a large measure due to this recognition." ^ 

At the Commencement of Cornell University of 
1919, Ex-Governor Charles E. Hughes said: 

" With the world in ferment, we are appraising 
the steadying and conserving influences and we look 
to the university for something more than the dis- 
charge of its primary and distinctive function in in- 
struction. What aid may we expect to counteract 
the destructive aims of those who would wreck free 
government and enthrone the tyranny of class hat- 
red ? Democracy cannot be saved by arms, our vic- 
tory has preserved the opportunity to have democ- 
racy. But it remains for the testing days of peace to 
determine whether democracy itself can be preserved. 

1 Detroit Free Press, 26th of June, 1919. 



The C ommencemenis of the War Periods 241 

The success of the endeavor must be the result of 
many cooperating forces, preeminent among which 
will be the sentiment and convictions of men trained 
in the higher institutions of learning. 

" The battle of free government is never com- 
pletely won. It is an age-long struggle against foes 
without and more insidious and dangerous foes 
within. ISlow, with tyrants overthrown and autoc- 
racy destroyed in its last citadel, we must fight anew. 
Where in democracy should we look for the cham- 
pions of the fundamental principles of liberty, if 
not in the students of history — to those who have 
pondered over the long contests for equal rights ? " ^ 

These lengthy extracts and many others which 
might be added voice the general and highest senti- 
ments of the human soul. They are the sentiments 
of youth and of age, of the one who believes in Amer- 
ica first, and the one who believes in the Allies first. 
They touch the deepest elements of humanity and 
they ascend to the utmost limits of the imagination of 
man. 

Among the significant elements of the commence- 
ments and especially of that of 1919, were the hon- 
orary degrees given to those who were engaged in the 
war or in service connected with the war. Vermont 
gave to Admiral Mayo the degree of LL.D. in 1919, 

1 Boston Transcript, June 2l8t, 1919, 



242 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

and Bates tlie same degree to Major General Hersey. 
Princeton, Yale and other colleges gave to Davidson, 
President of the Red Cross, the degree of LL.D. 
Holy Cross College of Worcester gave to William 
Mulligan, Director of the Knights of Columbus War 
Activities, also an LL.D. In the commencement of 
that year also. Rear Admiral Sims received an LL.D. 
from both Yale and Harvard. The University of 
Pennsylvania conferred on Brigadier General At- 
terbury, the degree of LL.D. in 1919. 

In this same relationship also is heard the key- 
note of internationalism. For both Oxford and Cam- 
bridge conferred on General Pershing a degree in 
1919, and Oxford gave a D.C.L. to Herbert Hoover 
in the same year. Lord Reading received an LL.D. 
at several American universities. Columbia gave an 
LL.D. to Secretary Lansing in 1918, and Wisconsin 
gave one to Marcel Knecht of the French High Com- 
mission in recognition of his work in promoting 
friendly relations and mutual understanding between 
the people of the United States and his own nation. 
Amherst in 1918 gave the degree of LL.D. to Lieu- 
tenant General, Sir James Wilcox, the Governor of 
Bermuda. 

It may also be said that Brown University, at its 
one hundred and fiftieth annual commencement, took 
away the degree which had been previously conferred 



The Commencements of the War Periods 243 

upon Ambassador Bemsdorff. The vote annulling 
the honor declared that while he was Ambassador of 
the Imperial German Government to the United 
States, and while the two nations were still at peace, 
he was guilty of conduct unworthy of a gentleman 
and a diplomat. 

Certain degrees that might be called war degrees 
were also conferred upon students who had entered 
the national service from the college and had not re- 
turned. These degrees took various forms and were 
based upon different foundations. It may in general 
be said that the degree of Bachelor of Arts and the 
degree of Bachelor of Science were conferred upon 
students of several colleges who had finished at least 
three of the four years of college residence. The cus- 
tom begun in American colleges in the Spanish- 
American War to substitute in a formal way, service 
in the Army or ISTavy for academic study was thus 
continued and ennobled. The feeling was common 
throughout every commencement in every college, 
that no recognition could be too honorable for those 
who had laid aside the academic gown and had put on 
the uniform. The following examples are represen- 
tative : — 

At Knox College, those who were in war service 
during the first semester, and who returned and com- 
pleted satisfactorily courses of not less than fifteen 



244 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

hours each week in the second semester, received 
credit for one year's work. Those who left in the 
second semester of their Junior year received their 
degrees the following year upon completing fifteen 
hours. Trinity shortened the Easter vacation, placed 
Commencement later than usual, rushed the classes a 
little faster than usual, and endeavored to graduate 
with a year's credit those who returned to college 
during the winter term, after national service. 
Johns Hopkins gave a full year's credit to those who 
returned from the service in the middle of the year. 
Union College, by starting new courses and by ad- 
mitting men to classes for which they were perhaps 
not altogether qualified, attempted to make it pos- 
sible for men to get a year of credit for two terms' 
work. 



XV 



SOME ENDURING EFFECTS OF THE WAR ON THE COL- 
LEGES AND THE UNIVERSITIES 

To write of the enduring effects of the war on the 
colleges and the universities is to laj aside in part the 
function of the historian and to assume, in an equal 
degree, the function of the prophet. But, if one 
were to await the full knowledge of the enduring 
effects of any cause or force, in order to write its his- 
tory, no history would be written. At the present 
time, however, certain effects, which apparently are 
to continue, have become more or less manifest. 

One effect which is not occurring, be it first said, 
relates to the seriousness of the depletion of the forces 
of educated American manhood. The number of 
college men killed is small as compared to the losses 
suffered by the universities of Great Britain and of 
France. I^Teither is the American loss at all com- 
parable to the losses suffered by the Southern States 
in the Civil War. For fifty years, the share of the 
Southern people in the development of American so- 
ciety was unworthy of their earlier history. The 

245 



246 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

natural leaders in the later decades of tlie nineteenth 
century, while these decades were passing, were rest- 
ing in thir graves. No similar condition will pre- 
vail in the whole United States in the middle decades 
of the twentieth century. 

In a further prefatory way, it should be said that 
two temporary results became manifest when the col- 
leges opened their doors for the first complete post- 
war year of 1919-1920. The Freshmen, who en- 
tered in September of that year, came up with a less 
adequate fitness than the beginning classes of preced- 
ing years. Tor the necessities which the war laid on 
high school and academic students had sent them out 
from their classrooms onto the farms as ploughmen 
and vine dressers in the foregoing spring months. 
They had thus been allowed to shorten their prepara- 
tory years of study in order to raise grain for the 
nations. They had also suffered an interruption of 
their senior year by reason of the influenza of the 
autumn of 1918. These two conditions affected the 
colleges themselves no less than the high schools. 
The men of the first complete year following the war 
found the doing of their college work difficult by rea- 
son of inadequate preparation and impaired physical 
vigor, — and this work was not on the whole well 
done. 

This scholastic effect had relationship to the morale 



Some Enduring Effects of the War 247 

of students reentering college: students, in the 
year following the war, were less studious. Their 
studies made a less strong appeal to them, and the 
appeal was less strongly answered. For, while they 
were engaged in service over-seas, they were called 
upon to be obedient soldiers. Their wishes were not 
consulted. Their duties were diverse and compel- 
ling. Their wills and their bodies performed the 
chief functions of daily discipline. Their intellects 
had small share in the concerns of the camp. The 
return to the college, therefore, was a return from 
affairs volitional and physical to affairs intellectual. 
The return was not an easy one to make. The trans- 
fer of interest from obedient doing to critical, con- 
sistent, and continuous thinking was difficult. The 
result, in consequence, was general unrest, emotional 
dissatisfaction, and mental dissipation. The right to 
complain against the national, and to bo rebellious 
against the college, government was recognized as al- 
most a duty ! But, as the college months passed, these 
elements became less evident, and in the progress of 
the year, they were found to be vanishing. 

An effect, also, which may not be permanent, but 
which will certainly continue for at least several 
years, is found in the vast increase of students. The 
increase is general, covering all colleges. It repre- 
sents an enlargement of numbers of about one-third. 



248 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

ENROLLMENT FIGURES FOR 1919-20, 1918-19, 1916-17 

Name of College 1919-20 1918-19 1916-17 

Allegheny 515 

Amherst 503 

Bates 472 

Boston College 700 

Boston University 5,396 

Bowdoin 453 

Brown 1,295 

Bryn Mawr 444 

Clark 202 

Colgate 545 

* Columbia 15,828 

Connecticut College 305 

Cornell 5,152 

Dartmouth 1,733 

Depauw 853 

Goucher 783 

Hamilton 299 

Harvard 5,204 

Holy Cross 702 

Indiana State 2,347 

Johns Hopkins 3,200 

Knox 500 

Lafayette 700 

Lehigh 1,100 

Leland Stanford 2,443 

Mass. Agricultural 742 

Mass. Inst, of Technology 3,092 

Middlebury 479 

Mt. Holyoke 815 

New Hampshire 806 

* New York University 9,695 

Northwestern 5,732 

Norwich 270 

Oberlin 1,535 



571 


395 


387 


505 


402 


473 


591 


675 


3,162 


2,917 


372 


434 


964 


1,140 


472 


447 


203 


153 


371 


581 


9,910 


14,229 


300 


204 


3,480 


4,746 


772 


1,501 


897 


740 


706 


612 


259 


220 


3,894 


5,656 


650 


560 


2,029 


1,131 


1,976 


2,782 


508 


506 


462 


634 


800 


775 


1,507 


2,012 


440 


695 


1,821 


1,957 


386 


372 


874 


824 


607 


666 


5,470 


7,719 


3,693 


5,078 


241 


196 


1,410 


1,496 



8ome Enduring Effects of the War 249 

Name of CJoUege 1919-20 1918-19 1916-17 

Pennsylvania State 3,065 2,496 2,472 

Princeton 1,658 884 1,410 

Eadcliffe 625 527 675 

Khode Island State 343 255 336 

Simmons 1,269 1,027 1,088 

Smith 1,998 2,103 1,917 

* Syracuse 4,800 4,033 4,088 

Trinity 227 282 246 

Tufts 2,003 1,727 1,751 

Univ. of California 9,208 6,087 6,467 

Univ. of Chicago 4,424 3,387 3,718 

Univ. of Illinois 8,076 5,617 7,023 

Univ. of Maine 1,193 1,137 1,276 

* Univ. of Michigan 9,800 7,517 6,600 

* Univ. of Pennsylvania 10,321 4,934 8,761 

Univ. of Rochester 677 533 509 

Univ. of the South 255 208 188 

Univ. of Vermont 844 658 672 

Univ. of Virginia 1,453 957 1,067 

Univ. of Washington 5,056 3,352 3,215 

Univ. of Wisconsin 6,949 4,413 5,020 

Vassar 1,105 1,120 1,102 

Wellesley 1,526 1,594 1,572 

Western Reserve 1,925 1,448 1,583 

Williams 555 377 552 

Yale 3,461 3,064 3,262 

Worcester Polytechnic 567 474 539 

Totals 158,816 111,177 130,630 

* Includes summer school registration. 

(Boston Evening Transcript, 29th Nov., 1919; collected by 
the competent college editor, Henry T. Claus.) 

The cause of the increase was fourfold. One 

cause was that many boys and girls had been delayed 



250 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

in coming to college. The war interrupted the 
achievement of their educational purposes. They 
were now able to begin to realize an aim for their edu- 
cation which would have been realized in the normal 
processes, two or three years earlier. 

A second cause lay in the fact that money was 
more abundant. Prices had vastly increased. But 
the college fees had, in certain colleges, not at all in- 
creased, and in others seldom more than twenty-five 
per cent. In relation to other values, the cost of 
education was and is the lowest of all utilities. It is 
the only instance in modern life in which one is re- 
ceiving many fold more than the expenditure. 

The third reason of the increase lay in the great 
service which the colleges rendered in the war. This 
service touched every interest of modern life. The 
loyalty of students and graduates, a mighty sense of 
unity and fellowship, the outpouring of vast enthusi- 
asms, devotion to duty, represent the normal results 
of academic training. These results have had a mov- 
ing influence upon the community. The younger 
boys and girls wanted to enter into such a life. 

The fourth cause was found in the fact that men's 
minds had been impressed with the worthiness of 
things intellectual and spiritual. They had learned 
that these are the eternal values. They had also 
learned that the things seen are material and that 



Some Eriduring Effects of the War 251 

these things are temporal. They were eager in their 
idealism to possess the enduring values. 

A further result, rather circumstantial than es- 
sential, which gave and gives lasting assurance to 
the friends of higher education, was found in the 
new evidence offered by the war of the worthiness 
of the American university and college. The Mid- 
dle Ages gave to the modem world, either as original 
or mediating forces, three institutions: — the Em- 
pire, the Papacy, and the University. The Empire 
was finally dissolved by ISTapoleon. The Papacy en- 
dures, yet shorn of much of its political power and 
prestige. The University alone comes forth, with 
each succeeding decade, with power increased and 
prestige augmented. The university has not only 
proved to be humanistic, but, what is far more im- 
portant, human. It is patriotic and interpatriotic, 
national and international. Its teachers are not re- 
mote from human concerns. They are easily respon- 
sive to all human ideals. Its students are kindled, 
by simple words and deeds, unto flaming devotions. 

The war also gave a higher appreciation of that 
simple but fundamental element, the value of phys- 
ical health. The returned soldier student returned 
carrying a more vigorous body. His manlier bear- 
ing, his fuller chest, his larger and harder muscles, 
his clearer eye, his greater robustness, proved, as 



252 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

these qualities themselves manifested, his firm and 
usually firmer health. These results were the nor- 
mal effects of regular life, lived under proper disci- 
pline in the open. These results were, according to 
the military commander, necessary causes and forces 
for the carrying forward of the normal movements 
of warfare. The hospital is not a tool of aggressive 
conflict. The soldier learned that about one-third of 
all drafted men were rejected by reason of physical 
deformities or deficiencies. He learned also the un- 
speakable peril and penalties of venereal disease. 
Out of all these diverse conditions and causes, the 
student, coming from the ranks, came to the college 
bearing in his body an illustration of the value of 
health which gave silent and impressive lessons to 
all his associates. 

Closely associated with the resulting appreciation 
of the value of good health was the element of mili- 
tary training in the colleges. Many college ofiicers 
and college students who were engaged in the service 
in France, and college graduates who did or who did 
not go over-seas, have, as a result of the training of 
and in and for the war, come to hold opinions opposed 
to military training as a constituent part of the col- 
lege course. It was and is recognized by all that mil- 
itary training in the college may represent a certain 
cooperative citizenship. It also represents obedi- 



Some Enduring Effects of the War 253 

ence, which is the first duty of the soldier and, in cer- 
tain respects, the first duty of the student. It stands 
also for the control of appetites and the curbing of 
passion. It does, or should, mean the eliminating or 
the curing of obscure physical weaknesses and the 
promotion of physical strength. Properly pursued, 
it might help to form permanent habits of good phys- 
ical exercise. It also embodies the progressive ele- 
ment in such exercise; for military training passes 
on from the simple to the less simple, from the less 
simple to the complex, and from the complex to the 
more complex. 

But also it has been recognized that military train- 
ing in the college is not usually interesting. To the 
Freshmen it may have some fascination. It is new 
and pulsates with a touch of the world of vision and 
of glory. But, as the months or the years pass, its 
interest vanishes. The students of one college peti- 
tioned for a military training course to be intro- 
duced. Within less than twelve months, not less 
than seventy-five per cent, of the enrollment peti- 
tioned for its abolition. Most students are rebellious 
against accepting it as a required academic course. 
In its lack of interest, it is not so recreative as it 
should be, and whatever recreation it does possess 
is rather of a stilted and mechanical form, without 
imagination or a sense of fun. It has also been 



254 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

proved that it is difficult to fit it into the other ele- 
ments of the curriculum. Evidence is not lacking 
that it does not adjust itself so w^ell to the physical 
and other needs of the student as a more diversified 
form of exercise. Variations from its standards are 
few and infrequent. The attempts, therefore, made 
to establish the Reserve Ofiicers' Training Corps in 
the colleges have not met with a general degree of suc- 
cess. The spirit of rebelliousness to it is not quite so 
marked as the spirit of opposition to the more 
ordinary type of military training. But the 
rebelliousness is still marked. It has come to 
be felt by many college officers that the best prep- 
aration for the service of a soldier consists in giving 
him a strong, vigorous body, facile and forceful, 
united with a strong, vigorous mind, also' facile and 
forceful. Such a body and such a mind united in 
one person, distinguished military officers say, can be 
formed, in the course of a brief time, into the stuff 
for a good soldier, and even into first-rate material 
for service as an officer. 

A further effect was manifest in the greater seri- 
ousness pervading the ranks of students. The play 
element was lessened. Silly self-indulgence was 
curbed. The religious service of the college chapel 
commanded fuller attendance, closer attention, and 
an attitude of deeper worship. Snap courses became 



Some Enduring Effects of the War 256 

less popular. Studies that serve well in life's strug- 
gles were more generally elected. Teachers who in- 
spire and quicken were more constantly sought. The 
presence of the soldier, wounded or unwounded, con- 
tributed to this result. The man on crutches, with a 
happy face peering up and out between the bars, and 
the man who had been gassed, with a face worn, thin, 
pale, greatly added to this feeling of seriousness. 

This feeling of seriousness arose in part from a 
broader and more intimate knowledge of the Euro- 
pean world. To the men who had been in Europe in 
the wartime, history was made more vital. America 
is a new country, and Americans do not possess the 
long and rich historic background. Their conditions 
necessitate such ignorance. Living for months, or 
years, in France serves to impress upon a man of the 
new world, the significance of a long historic yester- 
day. The present American conditions also became 
through foreign residence more visible and more im- 
pressive. Problems, national, international, individ- 
ual, were seen more clearly in their outlines and con- 
tent. Under such conditions, the returned soldier 
student inevitably became more serious in thought 
and feeling. 

This academic effect had relation to a further re- 
sult. It was the result of the acceptance on the part 
of the students of a deeper responsibility for the com- 



256 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

miinity. The college man came to know that he 
should assume, — always, of course, in humility, — 
the spirit of leadership of the community. His 
power of insight into conditions is keener and 
broader, his appreciation of the worth of the forces 
of the commonwealth is more adequate, and his abil- 
ity to apply these forces is greater, than belong to the 
ordinary membership. Such conditions were es- 
pecially strong in the years following the war. 

The enhanced appreciation, which the community 
gained, of the higher education was also the result of 
a deeper appreciation of themselves by the colleges. 
Colleges are always responsive to the feelings and 
judgments of the community to a degree which 
neither the college nor the community realizes. The 
colleges learned, through the war, that the education 
they offer is worthy of humanity, that the disciplined 
mind which they create by a formal training is the 
most effective force in the world, and that the rich 
and full-orbed character which they foster is the best 
product of civilization. The war, directly or indi- 
rectly, increased the stipends of the college teacher. 
But this result was of no worth in comparison with 
the ennobled self-confidence, always humble and sel- 
dom arrogant, which the American university and 
college came to possess. 

A further effect concerns the permanent condition 



Some Enduring Effects of the War 257 

of the humanities as a subject of study. It is the so- 
cial humanities which have become more securely es- 
tablished in the academic curriculum. The antique 
humanities have suffered a constant elimination. 
The natural and physical sciences, despite the high 
and useful function they filled in the war, have not 
gained in subsequent popularity or influence. The 
philosophical and psychological courses, notwith- 
standing the value of psychology in the waging of the 
war and in removing certain resulting distress, have 
likewise not secured a more commanding following. 
But the studies, called social, dealing with men in 
relation to each other, — history, economics, govern- 
ment, political science, sociology, — have been lifted 
to places higher and broader in the academic order. 
The students elected, and still elect, such courses 
more fully ; and to teachers of such courses students 
were, and are, inclined to pay a more loyal loyalty. 
The reason is not far to seek. In the war men learned 
that the relations of men to each other are the chief re- 
lations. If men are enemies, enemies should be in- 
telligently understood. Opposing points of view 
should be examined, and the grounds of antagonism 
carefully weighed. If men are friends and co-work- 
ers, — political, commercial, industrial, — their mu- 
tual rights and duties, activities and conditions, 
should be recognized and considered. At all events, 



258 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

men are citizens, and all relations to one's nation are 
of compelling significance. Moreover, each nation 
bears relationsliips to other nations, and therefore the 
facts of international history, the doctrine of ex- 
changes, financial and of commodities, diplomatic 
and consular arrangements and adjustments, are all 
quickening influences upon the academic mind. The 
student vision, therefore, has come to see beyond the 
college walls, even if one stands on their top. The 
students have come to feel the w^orld's throbs and in- 
terests, and these interests influence them to select 
those subjects of study which touch, more and most 
directly, upon those interests. 

Of course, such directness of topic and immediacy 
of method involve a certain intellectual loss. The 
loss is a lessened sense of intellectual relationships. 
The loss means a thinner background, a shallower re- 
flectiveness, a narrower perspective and outlook. 
The loss is a loss in culture, in appreciation of general 
values, in depths and richness of thinking and feel- 
ing. But, along with the loss runs a gain, a gain in 
directness and in efficiency, in pursuit of ends, an ef- 
ficiency which, in a world of service and in a lifetime 
whose working period is so brief, is of unspeakable 
preciousness. 

I also believe that the war gave to the university 
student and teacher a deeper desire to use his learn- 



Some Enduring Effects of the War 259 

ing and his lecturing for the public welfare. A 
stronger and deeper altruistic note was heard in the 
academic song. Of course universities have always 
been devoted to the service of their nations, be the 
government of a particular nation monarchical or 
democratic. In the ]\Iiddle Ages, kings found their 
ministers of state and their diplomats among the 
university-trained graduates. The newer democratic 
communities have usually called to their offices, — 
legislative, executive, judicial, — men of academic 
training. The modern record is of a significance 
even more commanding than the mediseval. The 
American student and teacher, therefore, have become 
impressed in a peculiar way with the duty they owe 
to the mind and the movements of their own genera- 
tion outside of academic gateways. The obligation 
of the stronger to help the weaker, the value of unity 
of thought, of feeling, of action, the appreciation of 
individual and corporate sympathy, the worth of loy- 
alty to great ideas, the missionary motive as applied to 
intellectual forces, have become common sentiments 
of mighty motive and movement. The student as- 
sents to the truth of Huxley's remark, " So far as 
we possess the power of bettering things, it is our 
permanent duty to use it, and to train all our intel- 
lect and energy for this supreme service to our kind." 
Institutions change slowly. That mediaeval and 



260 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

modem institution, the "university, with the church, 
is the most conservative of all the great foundations 
made by the mind of man. The students of the twen- 
tieth century in the American institution are singu- 
larly akin to the students of the fifteenth century in 
Oxford and Leipsic. But, although changing slowly, 
and by slight degrees, the academic mind does change. 
The results I have noted are already beginning to 
affect the body of the students and the movements of 
academic life. It now seems probable that these re- 
sults will endure among the students of many follow- 
ing generations. 



XVI 

ACADEMIC MEMORIALS 

In the funeral oration whicli Thucydides puts into 
the mouth of Pericles, at the close of the first year 
of the Peloponnesian war, the great statesman and 
orator says: 

" For the whole earth is the sepulchre of famous 
men; not only are they commemorated by columns 
and inscriptions in their own country, but in foreign 
lands there dwells also an unwritten memorial of 
them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men." ^ 

The sentiments expressed in Greece, twenty-three 
hundred years and more ago, are felt likewise in 
America in the year 1920. The whole earth is filled 
with memorials of our college boys. But, in addi- 
tion, it is fitting, natural, and almost commanding to 
the soul, that individual memorials be raised. 

Commemorative accounts, events, tokens, tablets, 
medals, foundations, buildings are a normal and nat- 
ural consequence of noble achievements. The found- 
ing of a memorial in recognition of great deeds is al- 
most instinctive to man. The desire seems to belong 

1 Thucydides' History, Jowett's translation, I. 133. 
261 



262 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

to the early impulses of the race, as is witnessed in the 
cairns on the lonely mountain peak where a hero did 
a brave deed. Civilization has not eliminated this 
primitive instinct, but has rather seemed to augment 
and to discipline it. 

An academic memorial, like every other, should ap- 
peal to the sense of idealism in humanity. It should 
touch the imagination, move the sense of the poetic, 
and incarnate in the visible and the tangible the 
highest aspirations of the human spirit. It should 
create a certain solidity of thrilling impulses, which 
it should elevate and broaden and deepen. Every 
noble feeling should be stirred by its vision or recol- 
lection. It should be a permanent festival of the 
dead. It should with ever increasing force appeal 
to the eternal and the universal in the human soul. 
In it the elements of a materialistic utility should 
be given little or no place. It may help man to do 
his daily work more thoroughly, to bear his anxiety 
more calmly, to fulfill life's functions more com- 
pletely. But these results it wins by its appeal to 
'the highest and the lordliest and the divine in his be- 
ing. A worthy memorial is still the sky and the star 
and the far-off sun in man's character and life. It 
is still the token, the evidence, the proof of the etern- 
ally free spirit in man as the child of the universal 
and the everlasting. 



Academic Memorials 263 

Sucii should be the characteristics of every me- 
morial. In particular a college memorial should pos- 
sess them in fullest degree. For it is for such ideals 
that the college youth died. These ideals are the 
highest. They embody not simply a national pur- 
pose, but rather one international, and not simply an 
international one, but rather that power which un- 
derlies humanity, Divinity. 

Memorials have, for more than two thousand years, 
taken on a great variety of forms. Pericles rebuilt 
parts of Athens as a memorial of the Persian Wars. 
The city of Alexandria forever commemorates a 
world-conqueror. St. Sophia, Constantinople, still 
stands a token of the victory of the cross. Through- 
out the Middle Ages abbeys were founded as memor- 
ials, and likewise in the Renaissance period, colleges 
and schools. Within the last hundred years, Water- 
loo Bridge and the Nelson Column of London bear 
their own commemorative purpose. 

Among other great memorials in material form are 
the Taj Mahal, the Arch of Triumph in Paris, Tra- 
jan's Arch, the Victor Emmanuel pile in Rome, the 
Washington Monument on the banks of the Potomac, 
and the Robert Gould Shaw tablet on Boston Com- 
mon. Similar forms in marble or stone or bronze, 
college memorials might fittingly assume. Of these 
memorials the Robert Gould Shaw bronze has the 



264 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

dearest meaning to the heart of the college youth. It 
is in a sense a college emblem. If only such a tablet 
could be set up on every college campus ! But a like 
memorial, though of quite unlike esthetic conception 
or execution, might have a quickening meaning. For 
throughout the villages of many an American state, 
on common, or on public square is erected a simple 
figure in granite of the American soldier of the Civil 
War. His clothes do not fit him. The expression of 
his face is stolid. His poise is neither civil nor mili- 
tary. On the foundation stone or on the sides of the 
column are cut his name and the names of his fallen 
comrades. Gettysburg, Antietam, Fredericksburg 
are also inscribed. Despite its lacks and incongrui- 
ties, it is always moving to the mind and the heart of 
the beholder. Such a figure set up in bronze or mar- 
ble in college halls or on college grounds is a fitting 
memorial. 

Buildings may also form a memorial likewise fit- 
ting. But in academic buildings imagination should 
ever be given full freedom. To the college men 
fallen in the Civil War are erected several memorials 
of this type. Conspicuous among them are the Me- 
morial Hall at Chapel Hill, of the University of 
North Carolina, the Memorial Hall at Bowdoin, and 
the memorial part of a great hall at Harvard. Build- 
ings are sure to be built in scores of colleges, com- 



Academic Memorials 265 

memorative of the men fallen in the Great War. 

Gateways form also a most fitting type. They 
largely eliminate by their very condition, the element 
of materialistic utility. Already several college 
classes have considered the building of such a me- 
morial to their unreturning members and in apprecia- 
tion of the service of all of their members. 

Three outstanding athletic captains of Yale lost 
their lives in the war. It has been proposed to asso- 
ciate their names with the Bowl, and other athletic 
structures. Such association is more fitting than a 
superficial interpretation might suggest. For the 
men, trained in the academic sports, through that 
very training, were made more efficient in the war. 
Discipline, intellectual and ethical, power of initia- 
tive, team-work, are the qualities alike valuable in the 
sports, in the service and in life. 

But beyond and above such physical forms, com- 
memorative foundations in gifts of funds or of li- 
braries have peculiar significance. Professorships, 
scholarships, lectureships, each devoted to the pur- 
poses held dear by those who died, are fitting. They 
touch the imagination. They serve by their teaching 
to elevate the mind, to purify the heart, to give a 
sense of grandeur and sublimity to man's highest 
choices. They also endure, as the college itself is 
among the most enduring of the creations of man. 



266 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

Buildings may crumble and must, but tbe inamate- 
rial foundation standeth sure. Already such me- 
morial foundations are being laid. 

A Harvard man, of the class of 1919, who was 
mortally wounded in 1918, has been commemorated 
by a scholarship founded by his family in Trinity 
College, Cambridge, which is to be held by an Amer- 
ican student nominated by the President and Fel- 
lows of Harvard. A scholarship also in his honor 
has been established at Harvard which is to be 
awarded to a student from France. Another father 
has given a scholarship in memory of his son, Wil- 
liam H. Meeker, of the class of 1917 of Harvard, 
killed in France, and has also given his son's library 
to the Harvard Crimson. The gift of the library 
is carrying out one of the last wishes of the boy, that 
if anything should happen to him while in France, 
his library should be given to the college in which he 
had been enrolled. The University of Toronto has 
raised a large sum for commemorative scholarships. 
Princeton has already founded ten such scholarships. 
Similar memorials have been established in other 
colleges and will continue to be founded for the next 
decade. 

Beneath the material form and the immaterial of 
memorials may lie certain natural associations. A 
row or a group of trees illustrates and embodies such 



Academic Memorials 267 

a commemoration. IsTew Hampsliire College at Dur- 
ham has planted a grove of trees in honor of eigh- 
teen of her graduates who fell. 

Many memorials, as these paragraphs intimate, 
have been established by the parents of the dead stu- 
dent soldiers. Their foundation will yet go on for 
generations. Be it said that the mothers and 
fathers have borne, and still bear, and will continue 
to bear, their griefs with a sense of bravery equal to 
that of their fallen sons. They have learned the les- 
son which Professor Poulton, of Oxford, learned in 
the death of his son, Ronald, that " to be weakened 
by grief is the poorest tribute to our dear ones, and 
that it might be so is the thought that would have 
pained them most. ' At the time of Ronald's death I 
was numb with despair until, in a few days, this 
thought arose in my mind, and since then the comfort 
of it has never failed me; if any there be who have 
not yet found it, I am sure it will never fail them.' " ^ 

A distinct form of memorial for the living, as well 
as for the dead, was created by Williams College. It 
consisted of what is known as " The Williams 
Medal." The obverse of the bronze shows " a line 
of steel-helmeted doughboys, rifles in hand, with bay- 
onets fijxed, about to go over the top." The reverse 
is an imaginary portrait of the founder of the college, 
iThe British Weekly, December 25, 1919, 



268 Colleges and Universities in the Great War 

Colonel Ephraim Williams, on horseback, wearing 
the uniform of a continental officer. The legend, 
" For humanity 1918," appears on the obverse side, 
and the legend, " E Liberalitate E Williams Armi- 
geri 1793," is on the upper circumference of the re- 
verse. Wesleyan University and Union have also 
given similar tokens to their sons. 

These and other forms, college memorials are to 
take on in the next years. Whatever special shape 
they assume they will embody the spirit which stirred 
the soul of the soldier student who went forth pre- 
pared to die. The spirit has been movingly set forth 
in many a poem and noble paragraph. But in no 
verse written by college man for college man has the 
spirit been more fittingly embodied than the verses 
which Lieutenant White wrote of his Bowdoin friend, 
Eorbes Rickard, Jr., who was killed in action in the 
summer of 1918. 

" For firelight, and true books and candle-glow. 
And dear imagination that can find 
Behind the present and the passing hour 
The plan of One who has the will to grow 
Upon the frailest stock, the fairest flower — 
And let it wither in a wintry wind; 

" For that warm friendliness of soul's embrace 
When man meets man and knows him for a friend; 
For all the little signs which must betray 
Man's loyalty to love — for all the grace 



Academic Memorials 269 

Of Beauty which adorned his dawning day. 
He battled with clean heart until the end. 

" For these he fought — for love of life he died, 
A willing sacrifice to that High Faith 
Which bade him gird the young man's armor on 
And fling the shining truth at those who lied — 
Boasting that Power was Right — that that new dawn 
Which reddened in the sky was but a wraith. 

" He is a part of all he fought to save — 
And he has lent his soul to every breeze 
That cools the brow of Vision — seeing folk, 
And passing, sings of Hope, * Be strong, be brave, 
The new day dawns behind the tyrant's cloak — 
Lo, Freedom rises from the misty seas ! ' " i 

1 Poem by Lieutenant H. S. White, A. E. F., as a tribute to 
Forbes Rickard, Jr., killed in action July, 1918, 



INDEX 



Age of students, 1-2. 

Agriculture, service of, 137 ff. 

Alma College, enrollment and 
casualties, 217. 

American (Council on Educa- 
tion, 28 ff. 

American Distributing Serv- 
ice, 19. 

American University in 
France, 197 ff. 

American University Union, 
195 ff. 

American Volunteer Motor 
Ambulance Corps, 15 ff. 

Ames, Professor J. S., quota- 
tion from, 121-22. 

Arnold, Matthew, allusion to, 
152. 

Association of Collegiate 
Alumnae, allusion to, 
144. 

Athens, University of, rector 
of, and Bulgarians, 192. 

Baker, Secretary, quotations 
from, 33 ff., 83-84. 

Baldwin-Wallace College, al- 
lusion to, 97. 

Barker, Ernest, quotations 
from, 12, 162-63. 

Benson, A. C, quotation from, 
224-25. 

Bernsdorf, degree of, with- 
drawn, 242-43. 

Bowdoin College, enrollment 
and casualties, 219. t 



British University Mission, 

188 ff. 
Brooke, Rupert, sonnets of, 

171 ff. 
Brown University, enrollment 

and casualties, 217. 
in the war, 219. 
Bryn Mawr College, allusion 

to, 144. 
Bushnell, Edward, poem of, 

100-101. 
Butler, N. M., on German 

professors' letter, 193-94. 
Butterfield, Kenyon L., and 

the American University 

in France, 197 ff. 
quotation from, 199-200. 



California, University of, en- 
rollment and casualties, 
218. 
honors for students of, 
220 ff. 

Capen, Dr., quotation from, 
189. 

Cestre, Professor, quotation 
from, 186-87. 

Chaplains, army, 153 ff. 

Chapman, Victor, allusion to, 
20. 

Chemistry in war, 118 ff. 

Civil war, world war, losses 
in, contrasts of, 223-24. 

College officers in serviQe, 
92 ff. 



271 



272 



Index 



Colleges, financial relations 

of, 40 ff. 
income of, 40 ff. 
Columbia University, enroll- 
ment and casualties, 214. 
Commencements of the war 

period, 231 ff. 
Commissioner of Education, 

circular from, 66-67. 
Conklin, S. L., quotations 

from, 176 ff. 
Continental Hall Congress, 

26 ff. 
Cooperation of scientists, 

117 ff. 
Copeland, C. T., letter to, 

109 ff. 
Cox, S. Donald, quotation 

from, 170. 
Crile, Dr. G. W., quotation 

from, 131. 

Dartmouth College, enroll- 
ment and casualties, 217. 

Degrees given at war com- 
mencements, 241 ff. 

Democracy, in army, 101 ff. 
of students, 2 ff. 
of war and of education 
alike, 5-6. 

Dennys, E., quotation from, 
170. 

Dickinson College, enrollment 
and casualties, 215. 

Education, worth of, 88-89. 
Effects of war on colleges, 

245 ff. 
Eliot, President, quotation 

from, 8-9. 
Ellis, William T., q^UQtatiQn 

from, 157 ff. 



English poetry, 168 ff. 

Enrollment of students, 46 ff., 
85 ff. 

Erskine, John, and the Ameri- 
can University in France, 
197 ff. 

Fatigue, indvistrial, 130-31. 

Faunce, President, quotation 
from, 219. 

Federal, Board for Vocational 
Education, 28. 
government and the S. A. 
T. 0., 60-61. 

Financial Relations of Col- 
leges, 40 ff. 

Fisk University, enrollment 
and casualties, 218. 

Fordham University, enroll- 
ment and casualties, 214. 

Foreign Legion of French 
Army, 19 ff. 

Franklin and Marshall Col- 
lege, enrollment and cas- 
ualties, 215. 

French, policy concerning 
study of German, 183 ff. 
students in American col- 
leges, 185 ff. 
universities and the war, 
228. 

Gains of the S. A. T. C, 72 ff. 

Geographers in war, 124 ff. 

Geologists in war, 124 ff. 

Georgia, University of, en- 
rollment and casualties, 
219. 

German, language, lessened 
study of, 181. 
professors' letter of 1914, 
193. 



Index 



273 



Gordon, George A., remarks 

of, at Harvard, 234 ff. 
Graham, of North Carolina 

University, allusion to, 

110-11. 
Graham, Stephen, quotations 

from, 154-55. 
Graham, Walter, allusion to, 

170-71. 



Hadley, President, remarks of, 
236 ff. 

Hamilton College, enrollment 
and casualties, 214. 

Hardy, Thomas, allusion to, 
171. 

Harvard University, allusion 
to, 207-10. 
enrollment and casualties, 

214. 
Medical School, allusion to, 

18. 
memorials, 266. 

Herbert, George, allusion to, 
169. 

Holmes, O. W., quotation 
from, 3-4. 

Hoover, Herbert, remarks of, 
at Harvard, 233 flf. 
service of, 21-23. 

Hope College, enrollment and 
casualties, 217. 

Houston, Secretary, quota- 
tions from, 137 ff. 

Hughes, Charles E., at Cor- 
nell commencement, 240. 

Hulme, W. H., on scholarship 
as an international tie, 
206-07. 

Hyde, Professor J. E., allu- 
sion to, 125. 



Illinois, University of, enroll- 
ment and casualties, 217. 

Illinois Wesleyan University, 
enrollment and casualties, 
217. 

Income of colleges, 40 ff . 

Industrial fatigue, 130-31. 

Intercollegiate Intelligence 
Bureau, 24 ff. 

International relations, 180 ff. 

Interpatriotism of students, 
8-9. 

Johns Hopkins University, en- 
rollment and casualties, 
216. 

Kalamazoo College, enroll- 
ment and casualties, 217. 

Kelman, Dr. John, quotation 
from, 164-65. 

Keppel, Dean, remarks of, at 
Michigan, 238 ff. 

Kipling, allusion to, 175. 

Knights of Columbus, 153 ff . 

Korner, allusion to, 171. 

Lafayette College, enrollment 
and casualties, 215. 

Lake Forest College, enroll- 
ment and casualties, 217. 

Lake, Professor K., quotation 
from, 189. 

Lawrence College, enrollment 
and casualties, 218. 

Leland Stanford, Jr., Univer- 
sity, enrollment and cas- 
ualties, 218. 

Letts, Spires of Oxford, 7-8. 

Losses of S. A. T. C, 78 if. 

Lowell, Commemoration Ode, 
allusion to, 8. 



2T4 



Index 



Mackintosh, quotation from, 
170. 

Mass. Agricultural College, 
enrollment and casual- 
ties, 214. 

Mass. Institute of Technology, 
quotation from professor 
in, 95-96. 

McClellan, Dean, quotation 
from, 24. 
service of, 24. 

McCracken, President, of Vas- 
sar College, quotation 
from, 149. 

Medical fatigue, 130-31. 
schools in war, 126 S. 
defects of, 131-32. 

Memorials, academic, 261 ff. 

Metcalf, W. V., quotation 
from, 96. 

Miami University, enrollment 
and casualties, 215. 

Michigan, Agricultural Col- 
lege, enrollment and cas- 
ualties, 216. 
University of, enrollment 
and casualties, 216. 

Midlands imiversities and the 
war, 227. 

Military training in colleges, 
252 fiF. 

Motives of students for enter- 
ing service, 1 ff. 

Mt. Holyoke College, allusion 
to, 144. 

Miinsterberg, allusion to, 97. 



ment and casualties, 213- 
14. 

Nightingale, Florence, allu- 
sion to, 140. 

North Dakota, University of, 
enrollment and casual- 
ties, 219. 

Norton, Richard, quotation 
from, 15 ff. 

Ohio Wesleyan University, 
enrollment and casual- 
ties, 215. 

Oxford and the war, 225-226. 

Patriotism of studentS;, 6 ff., 
88. 

Pennsylvania College, enroll- 
ment and casualties, 215. 

Perkins, Roger C, quotation 
from, 132 ff. 

Phelan, R. V., quotation from, 
161. 

Physics in war, 120 ff. 

Pittsburg, University of, en- 
rollment and casualties, 
215. 

Poetry as interpreting the 
war, 167 ff. 

Poulton, Professor, reference 
to, 267. 

Princeton University, enroll- 
ment and casualties, 216. 

Purdue University, enroll- 
ment and casualties, 
217-18. 



National Advisory Committee 
for Aeronautics, 27. 

National Research Council, 
31 ff. 

New York University, enroll- 



Randolph-Macon College, allu- 
sion to, 142. 

Reed College, Oregon, allu- 
sion to, 142. 

Reeves, Ira L,, and the Amer- 



Index 



275 



ican University in 

France, 197-98. 
Relations, international, 180 

ff. 
Eeligion of students, 151. 
Reserve Officers' Training 

Corps, 35 flf . 
Rhode Island State College, 

enrollment and casual- 
ties, 217. 
Rhodes' scholars, service of, 

21flf. 
Rickard, Forbes, Jr., poem to, 

by Lieut. H. S. White, 

268-69. 
Rochester, University of, en- 
rollment and casualties, 

214. 
Romance languages, study of, 

184 ff. 
Roumania, commission to, 

132 ff. 
Rutgers College, enrollment 

and casualties, 216. 

St. John's College, enrollment 
and casualties, 216. 

St. Louis University, enroll- 
ment and casualties, 218. 

Schelling, Professor, quota- 
tion from, 190. 

Sciences and scientists, 115 ff. 

Scotch universities and the 
war, 226 ff. 

Seeger, Alan, allusion to, 20, 
172 ff. 
quotations from, 10. 

Servia, commission to, 135 ff. 

Shipley, Vice Chancellor, quo- 
tations from, 188, 190 ff. 

Smith College, allusions to, 
144, 145. 



Sorley, C. H., quotation from, 

170. 
Spaulding, Frank E., and the 
American University in 
France, 197 ff. 
quotation from, 200-201. 
State universities, allusion to, 

41 ff. 
Strong, Dr. Richard P., serv- 
ice of, 18. 
Students, age of, 1-2. 
democracy of, 2 ff. 
enrollment of, 46 ff., 85 ff. 
increase of, 247 ff. 
killed, 210 ff. 
motives of, for entering 

service, 1 ff. 
religion of, 151. 
spirit of, 99 ff. 
Students' Army Training 
Corps, 55 ff. 
gains and losses of, 72 ff. 
Swarthmore College, enroll- 
ment and casualties, 215. 
Syracuse University, enroll- 
ment and casualties, 214. 



Taft, W. H., quotation from, 
70 ff. 

Thucydides, quotation from, 
261 ff. 

Treitschke, allusion to, 194- 
95. 

Trinity College (Conn.), en- 
rollment and casualties, 
216. 

Trustees of colleges, duties of, 
53-54, 62. 

Union, American University, 
195 ff. 



2T6 



Index 



Union University, enrollment 
and casualties, 214. 

United States, and the war, 
14 ff. 
casualties, 211. 

Vassar College, allusions to, 
142 ff., 146. 

Virginia, University of, en- 
rollment and casualties, 
218. 

Waite, Professor F. C, quota- 
tion from, 126 ff. 

War Department, circular of, 
56. 

Committee on Personnel, 27- 
28. 

Warren, Sir Herbert, quota- 
tion from, 225-26. 

Washington, University of 
( Seattle ) , enrollment and 
casualties, 218. 

Waterhouse, Irma, quotation 
from, 146-47. 

Wellesley College, allusions 
to, 143-4, 145. 

Wesleyan University ( Conn. ) , 



enrollment and casual- 
ties, 216. 

Western Reserve University, 
allusion to, 18. 
College for Women of, al- 
lusion to, 142. 

White, Lieut. H. S., poem to 
Forbes Rickard, Jr., 268- 
69. 

Whitlock, quotation from, 22. 

Williams College, enrollment 
and casualties, 214. 
memorial, 267-68. 

Women's Colleges, 140 ff. 

Woodberry, G. E., quotation 
from, 178. 

Worcester Polytechnic Insti- 
tute, enrollment and cas- 
ualties, 214. 



Yale University, in the war, 
236 ff. 
enrollment and casualties, 
216. 

Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciation, 153 ff. 

Yugo-Slav students, 192 ff. 



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